Complicated Strangers
by Ashesofthefirststar
Summary: 5 years after Ichigo's best friend, Byakuya, confessed his love to him, only to have Ichigo reject him and cut off all contact, Ichigo is filled with guilt and yearning. Ichigo tries to come to terms with the fact their now just complicated strangers, especially after he found out Byakuya had moved on. Only that pain ends up hitting closer to home than he ever imagined.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a reworked version of my uncompleted story "The Space Between." I've changed the name. Please give me some feedback.**

 **This is rated M for sexual situations. Theres a bit of GrimmIchi in this story.**

 **Good Vibes ~ Ashes.**

 **xXx**

" _ **The Space Between the wicked lies we tell and hope to keep safe from the pain**_

 _ **But will I hold you again?"**_

 _Lip's as soft and pink as a sakura petal collided with his just barely. His fingers gently twitched in nervousness as he maneuvered Ichigo's chin closer, and when he separate their lips, the air felt wrong in comparison. Byakuya glided his tongue over his lips after the pause in contact. He was tasting the feeling Ichigo's kiss gave, considering, savoring. Still looking dumbstruck at the unforeseen affection, a dry lump formed in Ichigo's throat, and he felt like molten rocks were erupting from his stomach._

 _Ichigo allowed himself to be pulled in for another, much deeper kiss that lingered with such a great catharses. He was parched, and those lips were the sweetest wine he had never known he wanted, but once he drank in the feeling of their swapping tongues plunging into each other, discovering every fleshy nook the other had, he couldn't imagine how he'd gone his whole life without the rare and ambrosial sensation of Byakuya Kuchiki's touch._

 _Both of the men heaved and rasped as their mouths found resolution to create the space between. Till this day, Ichigo wished he'd never stopped kissing the man. He wished he had never let such a space become a reality. If he had not, then all of his baggage might not have ever had a chance to get in between what they could have had. There would've been no room in that breath seizing moment of simple affection for Ichigo to ruin the best thing that had ever happen to him. Because Byakuya was just that, the best thing._

 _Ichigo would always wonder why. Why did Byakuya have to ruin such a blissful moment with that space and the words that filled them? Byakuya, a man who barely utilized words to express his emotions, picked that moment to let his heart fall from his mouth. Could it have been that Ichigo was really that important, that his feelings were so all encompassing that mere action was not enough?_

 _More importantly, why couldn't he say them back when he knew in that moment, despite the fact he'd go on to deny it, that he felt them too?_

" _Ichigo," Byakuya whispered, his heather hued moons growing heavier by the second, "I love you."_

 _All of those erupting embers turned deathly cold, freezing them both to the core._

 _Ichigo jerked and moved away from the couch that had been his whole universe just a moment ago. "How dare you say that shit to me? Where do you even- how the fuck- YOU CAN'T JUST KISS ME LIKE THAT. We're suppose to be best friends. I- you-" Before running towards the door, Ichigo said something he'd spend every second of his life since wishing he could take back. "_

" _You don't love me, and I certainly don't fucking love you, faggot."_

"Shut the fuck up, Ichigo," came the half - groan half - yawn that was promptly met by a shove to the shoulder. "You're moaning in your sleep again."

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Ichigo looked over with floaty vision as he tried adjusting to the light of day filtering in through the open blinds of his room. The customary shove of affection was met by an arm wrapping around his mid section and blue hair splaying out across his shoulder. He squinted through one eye at his lover, not even attempting to open the other.

"Grimmjow, you came home last night?"

' _Home',_ the man thought, _'that doesn't sound right. This isn't our home, this doesn't even feel like my home. This is just the place we fuck and sleep at.'_

The man half opened his eye's, and in a fraudulent display of aggravation, he growled slightly. "I'm here, ain't I?" He dug his head in closer to the cranny between Ichigo's shoulder and neck and pulled him in tighter.

Blinking a couple of times, Ichigo spoke in-between an unceremonious yawn. "Oh, well I just figured you weren't. I went to bed late, and you never showed up."

He closed his eyes once more as he allowed his head to rest against the gelled hair of Grimmjow. It prickled his face in a not to comfortable yet habitual manner. For a moment, he thought about what it would feel like to lean his cheek against Byakuya's raven tresses. Most likely, it be akin to the finest silk any spider could weave. Like usual, that thought was followed by a dull pang of guilt and sadness. They were mild in their effects, but still stung all the same. He had no right to wonder things like that, because if he hadn't had been so dense, so emotionally inept, so typically Ichigo Kurosaki, he wouldn't have to wonder. He didn't even deserve _that_ after the way he left things.

There was no use falling back to sleep now, not after the dream he had, or more aptly named, the nightmare. Maybe he should've felt guilty about having these thoughts next to his "lover," but he didn't, if only because lovers was a very loosely defined term for these two. They weren't really lovers. They weren't boyfriends. They most certainly weren't partners, and most of all, this wasn't their home. Home's weren't just houses, because they were built with love and the connections you felt to the walls and the people who resided within those walls. Whereas homes were built with give and take, his and Grimmjow's relationship was built with complacency, just two guys waisting time together so their loneliest didn't seem so apparent.

The pair had been fucking for over two years now, and at some point, Grimmjow started to become a face he was use to, a body that always found it's way back to his bed every night, sex or no sex. He was like a dog that kept coming around because you fed it once. Although, on Ichigo's part, it wasn't as if he was using Grimmjow any more than the other was using him. At least he made no pretenses that this was something it wasn't. Not only had the two never been official, but they also had never been monogamous. Grimmjow often went out drinking, looking to score with a variety of hot women or men. Ichigo did the same - although not nearly as often - and he never felt the least bit bad that his constant bed companion did so, nor did he feel guilty for doing so himself. There was never the 'what are we' talk. They never shared sweet nothings, never embarked in romantic acts. They had became comfortable within their nonchalant, nondescript relationship, and for what it was, Ichigo was fine with that.

What they really were was somewhere between, and unlike Byakuya, Grimmjow never filled those empty spaces with any meaningful words that would scare him away. In fact, it was Ichigo's casual availability that kept Grimmjow's interest. The man was a total rolling stone in leather, and any signs of deep attachment were a turn off to him. He liked coming and going at his own volition, but like the loyal pact animal he was, he liked a place to rest his head and quench his desires for human warmth, sexual or not. Ichigo honestly couldn't care less about what he did, not past a basic friend level. Grimmjow was good sex, wild and lustful sex even. He was good company, a fun and loyal guy who could provide some pretty entertaining banter and a nice fight when Ichigo was feeling up for it. The two made good friends with benefits. That was the thing though, Grimmjow was the guy you had fun with, passed the time with, not the guy you fell in love with. So like any good friends with benefits, if Grimmjow came to him and told him he'd rather not do the whole benefits part, Ichigo wouldn't feel much of anything about it, because when you really got to the bottom of what they were, they were _just_ friends.

Ichigo went to roll out of bed, but found himself being snagged and pulled into the curve of Grimmjow's body. His lower back was being greeted by the obnoxiously enthusiastic erection of his bed - mate. In such a close vicinity, Ichigo felt ready to hurl. He tried to wiggle away as he wrinkled his nose at the aroma of Grimmjow's late night.

"Get the fuck off me," Ichigo whined. "You smell like liquor and the juices of whatever chick you picked up last night." Looking over his shoulder, Ichigo cocked an eyebrow. "Really Grimmjow, you couldn't have done better?" He made a grossed out face, obviously referencing the bad stench left behind from whatever girl the man had picked up in his drunken stupor.

"That's just the smell of a good night, baby." He smirked into the nape of the man's neck. "Isn't it your favorite smell to wake up to?"

At the man purposely rubbing and grinding all of himself as close to Ichigo's nose as humanly possible, Ichigo turned and punched him in the arm as hard as he could in an attempt to free himself. "

Yeah, it just delightful. Now excuse me while I go throw up," Ichigo deadpanned, only to get his wrist pinned to the bed and his waist straddled by the muscular thighs of Grimmjow.

"Oh no ya' don't. Like you said, I can do better." He reached down and rolled Ichigo's perked nipple between two fingers as he ground his stiffness against Ichigo's pelvis. "You're better. I still got some energy to work out, let me play with ya'."

Ichigo rolled his eyes but also rolled his hips, as he felt no need to resist. It was as good of a way to start the morning as any, considering Grimmjow really was a top notch lay. He could make Ichigo cum easily and repeatedly, as he knew just how to thrust into him and the quirks of his body. Without thought, he knew what buttons to push, body parts to roll, areas to lick, and how hard to sink his teeth in. It was hot and sticky, nasty and rough, and if he wanted, Grimmjow was more than capable of making Ichigo scream his name.

However, like most things, memories of Byakuya made the experience seem watered down at best. Ichigo couldn't help but to wonder how amazing sex with Byakuya could have potentially been when they had gotten to know each others bodies with the same measure of intimacy, because just that one kiss they shared had all of the gut-churning, smile inducing affection that his and Grimmjow's tryst lacked. Their sex was pleasurable, but it was lacking. Or perhaps, Grimmjow and himself were the ones lacking. Their vacuous feelings made for vacuous sex, and more often than not, it left Ichigo with a nagging sensation in him stomach, like a hunger that begged to be filled but never could.

Although, without Byakuya, most things seemed lacking.

"Fine," Ichigo conceded as the man kissed on his neck, "but don't you even think of putting your junk anywhere near my mouth until you've scrubbed it with bleach."

His body was sprawled, and his arms were spread to hold Ichigo down. Leaning his head up so it was hovering over his lovers, Grimmjow smirked, "Jealous?"

"No." Ichigo crinkled his nose. "Disgusted. You smell gross. Did you drink the liquor or soak in it?"

Grimmjow answered his question by gliding his tongue down Ichigo's neck to play with the dip in his collar bone. In the wake of his trek, he left a sake scented path.

"It's cool. I wanted to fill up on you anyway." Ichigo netted his brow as Grimmjow began his slow decent. It wasn't that Grimmjow never gave him head, but it was pretty rare. Somehow, it made him feel less dominate. Ichigo didn't get the logic. The way he saw it, being able to control your lovers pleasure was the ultimate form of dominance.

Wistfully, he thought about how cocky Byakuya could be and how sexy Ichigo admittedly found that attribute of the man. That made him speculate that he'd love pleasuring with his mouth, if only to show off his abilities.

Ichigo pushed the thought out of his head and considered that Grimmjow was probably still drunk. It made sense, since he had just rolled into bed an hour ago. None the less, Ichigo wasn't going to question a good thing.

He choked slightly when a tongue found it's way to his entrance, and a loud, guttural moan shattered any confusion he might have felt in that moment. Rim jobs were a no access zone, much to Ichigo's dismay, because they made all other sexual acts seem like grade-school kisses when measured by pleasure. Grimmjow must have drank the bar out of liquor for him to be seeing past whatever alpha male type insecurities that lofted his tongue.

After Grimmjow lathered his coarse fingers in some strawberry flavored lube, he prodded Ichigo's entrance in the rough yet meticulous way Ichigo enjoyed. Pleasure dashed with just the right amount of pain would always have Ichigo's toes curling and back arching for deeper applications. While he held Ichigo's wrist captive, Grimmjow pushed in at a teasing speed, and seeing that Grimmjow loved to watch Ichigo fruitlessly writhe beneath him, he took to marking Ichigo anywhere he saw fit. Not that Ichigo contested, seeing as their bouts were always sheet soaking sensual.

Ichigo moaned in gratifying lust as the man stuck two fingers inside his mouth. As Grimmjow probed the wet cavern, Ichigo could taste himself, and his fleshy skin became aroused and highly sensitive. A growl resonated deep within Grimmjows throat as he wrapped Ichigo's legs around him and lifted the man's hips. With the new angle, he penetrated the man deeply and with a pain staking accuracy. Desire gave way to a more feral bucking of his hips, and he savagely attacked Ichigo's pulsating prostate with every thrust. Both men, in tandem, soon tumbled over the edge and straight into their apex of euphoria. As they came down from this high, their chest were pressed against each others, and they could feel their mutually fluttering heartbeats vibrate and fill their ear drums.

Thumbing Ichigo's parted and panting lips, Grimmjow pressed his lips to Ichigo's, and he kissed him with none of the usual voracity their joining's typically yielded. Instead, there was a gentle exploration.

It left Ichigo's lips feeling wrong. The tender gesture was out of place for their puckish yet low pressure relationship, especially since Grimmjow never kissed Ichigo outside of their sexual rough housing. Not that Ichigo did or wanted him to, for if that moment proved anything, it was just weird. Maybe the impersonal sex should've been what bothered Ichigo, but since he met Grimmjow, their unspoken arrangement had stayed a constant in their lives. This sexually symbiotic relationship fulfilled important needs for the duo: it quelled their restless sexual appetites and warmed their beds when the world got a bit too cold. It was the minimum investment with the maximum pay off. A good fuck with none of the baggage included. Best of all, there were no hurt feelings, because there were few feelings involved at all. Some would probably look at their relationship as dysfunctional or detached, and they'd probably be right, but they had one thing going for them that most relationships today lacked, and that was honesty. Maybe it was empty, loose, and meaningless, but at least it wasn't a farce. It never tried to be more than it was.

Ichigo rolled his eyes at the man once he removed his lips. "You're drunk, drunker than usual."

With a hefty scoff, Grimjow rolled off and exposed his sweaty nude body to the gust of wind coming from the ceiling fan. "I don't gotta be wasted to want to kiss you. I just felt like it, damn. It was a heat of the moment type thing." Removing his condom, he slung it at Ichigo carelessly, which earned him a grossed out look and an ear full of curse words.

Sliding to the side of the bed, Ichigo tidily knotted to condom and disposed the release in a bedside waste basket. "Yeah, well, it was just weird," he chuckled. "I'm more use to you cursing me out with your mouth, not kissing me with it."

Grimmjow snorted as he rolled on his belly to press his head into the feathery pillow situated on his side of the bed. He kicked Ichigo in the back playfully, albeit roughly. "Scram, will you? I gotta sleep off this alcohol since I'm _so_ fucking drunk."

"Yeah, Yeah, that sounds more like you."

As he was walked to the door, Grimmjow said something about how he better be woken up to the smell of breakfast. "What am I, your fucking maid!?" With that, Ichigo departed for the bathroom.

It wasn't too long until he was alleviating his achy bones under the steam and pressure of steep water beating against his body. He raked one hand through his drenched locks, and he inhaled the vapors that surrounded him deep into his sinuses. Again, like a song he couldn't get out of his head, Byakuya's memory found him, and the steam was useless when it came to assuaging that pain. It wasn't that he thought about Byakuya all of the time. It had been five years, and through time alone, the scars of their lost friendships had began to heal. The scar tissue, however, stilled throbbed in all of it's disfigured, inflamed glory. Meaning not a single day passed that the memory of Byakuya spared him. Of late, he had been thinking of Byakuya more and more. Most likely, this was the result of the surprise visit he was taking to his home town. It was always like that whenever he returned home, even if he never once saw Byakuya. Something about knowing he'd be that close to Byakuya, close enough to share the same breathing space, it stirred something inside of him. It shook at the little possibilities and the morsels of hope that Ichigo felt would never truly leave him. Like what if they passed each other on the street? What if he showed up to the park they spent their summers in, and by chance, Byakuya had shown up too, wondering the same thing? It was silly, a childish dream that would never be brought to fruition, and even if it did, what would he say? As close as they'd be in vicinity, their hearts would still be continents apart.

Mostly, going home made Ichigo horribly nostalgic for the years he and Byakuya spent by each others side.

The two were friends all the way through high school and halfway through college. To everyone who knew them, they were an unlikely pair. While both shared similar qualities, such as being stubborn, introverted, and readily equipped with pretenses that they showed everyone except each other, they also differed just as vastly. Ichigo was loud, rash, thoughtless, and spontaneous. Most contrasting, he was driven by his emotions. Meanwhile, Byakuya was silent and circumspect, logical and determined, unabashed and sagacious, and he was never one to let his emotions get out of hand. They met at the beginning of their freshman year when some punks were giving Byakuya a hard time for something as trivial as his wealthy upbringing. Ichigo, never one to idle himself when someone was unjustly beating up another, intervened. At first, it was obvious his involvement hurt Byakuya's pride, but more so, Byakuya wasn't a fighter if he didn't have to be, and he often chose to talk his way out of such altercations with pugnacious brats. Of course, once Ichigo egged them on, there was little hope of a verbal solution.

That's when Ichigo looked at Byakuya and said that he wasn't there to fight for him, but to fight with him. Three against one wasn't fair, and Ichigo lived by a strict code of honor, so he couldn't just walk away, and though Byakuya could've handled it himself - and he took no qualms in telling Ichigo that - he admired Ichigo's virtue and tenacity. Looking back on it, all of the years and how exactly they ended up so close merged into one beautiful blur, but that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was, from that day forward, they stood back to back, never having to worry about the potential of falling, because they knew the other was always there in support.

Despite any pain that followed the memories, Ichigo wouldn't trade them for a depthless well of fortune. At first, you could say the two felt like brothers. Byakuya would frequently be at odds with his demanding and often suffocating family, and the Kurosaki home became a place where he could breath freely. Through that, Ichigo's family became like Byakuyas. Ichigo and Byakuya became a family, and through no conscious effort of their own, they built a bond that transcended any one label. It was a bond that did not worry about the opinions of others, and it thought nothing of their insecurities or imperfections. In the presence of the other, they were always at home.

They were together so often, that it would be odd to see one without the other. If you saw Ichigo, one would just assume that Byakuya was probably close by. After so many years of friendship, some people seriously considered if the two shared some sort've metaphysical link and could read each others minds, because they became so attuned to one another's body language that it took only a look or a subtle mannerism to know what the other was thinking. Even as they grew older, this bond withstood the test of time and the trials that came along with coming of age. Perhaps that was because they came into age together, and because they grew so well together, they refused to grow apart. Or maybe it was because, to each other, they were never dispensable. There was never even a question, but just an irrefutable truth that didn't need articulation. Be it puberty, dating, jobs, or family, nothing could get in-between these two, because Byakuya and Ichigo were partners, best friends, and everything in-between, and no matter where they were in this world, be it side by side or oceans apart, they'd always be a pair.

However, even the Titanic, the once considered unsinkable ship, now lies crumbled at the bottom of the Atlantic. In that regard, Ichigo supposed everything was breakable, one just needed to pull hard enough. More accurately, it's about how resolute the vessel was, because like the Titanic, Byakuya and Ichigo's relationship was only as strong as it's weakest wall, and in the end, it was Ichigo who lacked the fortitude. He was the one who let the water seep in and drown them. It was all him.

They say it takes two to ruin a relationship, but Ichigo had to call bull shit on that one, because if their friendship was a garden, Byakuya was the brilliant sun shinning vigilantly, and Ichigo was the drought. He walked away, and with his own two hand, aided by no one, he took the rain with him.

In the midst of college, Ichigo got genuinely heart broken for the first time in his life when the most beautiful girl he'd ever known left him, his mom. With that despair came the complete dearth of care for anyone or anything that still resided in his heart. They were so close, she was so young, and Ichigo was so unprepared. Nothing made sense to Ichigo any more. Colors lost their vibrancy, food became bland, life seemed pointless, and he didn't even want to know what moving on looked like, because that meant moving on in a life without her. That meant moving on in a life where the person you love the most can just vanish and take a huge chunk of you with them, and you're suppose to walk around feigning whole. If that was what love and moving on was about, Ichigo would've rather stayed cold and stagnate.

It was three months after her death that Ichigo decided to quite medical school and run away to Tokyo under the guise of "finding himself." More accurately, he was trying to lose himself. So angry he was at the world, he wanted to destroy something, and in the end, that something was him and Byakuya. In hindsight, there was no sense to be found in his decision. He wrecked the most beautiful part of himself just because he could. He did it because he wanted to become so detached, that maybe it wouldn't hurt so damn much. So he threw everything away, his life, his friends, his schooling, and as a result, he got his wish. Now everyday felt like a gift he didn't want and couldn't return.

Without his mom, he felt hollow, but he knew nothing of the meaning. Some people, they lose the person they love the most, and that's really it for them. They have no one else, but Ichigo? He was one of the lucky ones. He had a bustling family who needed him to be there. A family that lost not only a mother but a son with her. He had Byakuya who transcended a family, a friend, or a lover, and maybe Ichigo couldn't deal with what it would mean to lose someone like that, so he exiled Byakuya from his life, but ironically enough, because of his own stupidity, now he knew for certain what it meant to lose him.

No matter how meaningless or inexcusable his reasons were, that was what prompted his harsh words all those years ago. When he told Byakuya he was leaving for Tokyo, he didn't try to stop him or convince him otherwise, because that was just the man Byakuyas was. Without seize or exception, he was patient, understanding, and most of all, trusting. He trusted that Ichigo would find his way back home even if that meant having to get lost for a while, and when Ichigo left, all Byakuya put in his suitcase was a kiss and a confession of love that held no conditions to it. Byakuya wanted Ichigo to know that, when he was ready, his arms would be waiting for him, and he'd always have a home in them if he so desired, but even that, Ichigo threw back in his face. Maybe it was because, despite not fully realizing it in the moment, all of the love he felt towards Byakuya that had been accumulating for years until it was so overwhelming and undeniable came crashing upon him with the force of a tsunami, and it was equally breathtakingly beautiful and terrifying at the same time. It was crippling in it's intensity.

To Ichigo, It was almost hilarious in a bitter way that when you realized you wanted something more than you had ever wanted anything, that capacity for desire you were unaware was so deep could scare you from ever searching its depths. After so long, he realized that was exactly what happen with him and Byakuya.

It didn't take long for Ichigo to realize his mistake. In fact, even as the vile spilt from his mouth, it was as if he was outside of himself, watching as he set fire to everything they were just for fun. It wasn't until later that the real magnitude of his choices set in, and he realized how cowardice he had been, but by that point, months had passed, and a myriad of phone calls and messages from Byakuya had been blatantly ignored. Seven years of friendship, and all he left the man with was cold words and the beeb of an answering machine.

Many times, he wanted to pick up the phone just to hear the other's voice. He wanted to trade antidotes or simply listen as Byakuya complained about the morons in his pre law program. He wanted to go to Byakuya's graduation and then help him apply for law school. He wanted midnight strolls around Karakura park or to share sushi on the abandoned roof top they'd go to all the time before college became too overwhelming. He wanted to kiss him on that rooftop, but the most backbone he had ever found only allowed him one cryptic phone call from a pay phone in which his voice abandoned him at the sound of Byakuya's velvety, sleep riddled baritone barely comprehensible via the bad connection.

This was a faeat in and of it's self, since It took a whopping seven months after he had left and two months after the phone stopped ringing for Ichigo to verbally admit to someone else - Renji, his good friend and coworker after a night of excessive drinking - and officially admit to himself, that he loved Byakuya and always had.

He had his reasons, but in comparison, they all seemed like bull shit now. Besides, what we perceive is what we label as our reality. The truth of Ichigo's feelings were further reaching than what Byakuya could perceive, but that didn't take validity away from his version of reality. Ichigo had stabbed Byakuya with the blade of betrayal, and even worse, he left the knife in for the man to remove himself. He left the wound for Byakuya's hands to heal only, and though the gash would close, like Ichigo, even when he felt as if maybe he'd been wholly mended, there would always be scar tissue to remind Byakuya that he'd never be quite the same.

It was feelings of unworthiness and fear that thwarted every impulse he had to just pick up the phone. He didn't want to have to hear Byakuya say he hatted him. He didn't want Byakuya's inevitable rejection to be given life, or the actualization that they would never be anything more than complicated strangers to each other. While he wanted nothing more than for Byakuya to be happy, he didn't want to see how much better off Byakuya was without him and his venomous, because surely, if he heard the words "I don't love you anymore," the last tether that had been keeping him raveled would be ripped asunder, and the last part of Ichigo that made any sense would have left along with it. He was a man with a little bit of self preservation, and perhaps if he lived in this perceptual in-between where there was always the improbability that Byakuya would accept him back with open arms, that he hadn't really lost his most important person, there may be an iota of salvation for him yet.

The weight of his actions were inescapable. Like nightmares, every time he closed his eyes all of his wrong doings played on loop for Ichigo's viewing pleasure only. He knew Byakuya had probably blamed himself for a long time. He knew that one day, when he never called or contacted, Byakuya came to terms with the idea that Ichigo really did hate him. Mostly, he took a trust he'd been gifted with and tainted it. He killed any vulnerable part Byakuya had in him, because if the person you shared your whole life with betrayed you, who could you trust? Overall, he knew the truth. He didn't deserve to apologize nor the saliva wasted when Byakuya spat at his pathetic vindication, and even if there was any hope for redemption, any fanatical ideas of him and Byakuya having a happy reunion were squashed two years prior.

Though Ichigo spared the man from his vicinity, he couldn't not keep tabs on Byakuyas life. He just had to know how he was doing, if only because these little briefings were the only part of Byakuya Ichigo had left. Without them, he couldn't keep up the illusion that he hand't lost his love completely. More so, he was concerned, and he just wanted to know Byakuya was doing okay, even if he had no right to it. Through Byakuya's unofficially adopted sister, Rukia, he would get little tidbits here and there, whatever he could squeeze out of her. They waned off the all enduring longing that sat like famine in his gut and held him over until she felt pity and told him something else.

He sounded great, successful, happy, and that brought Ichigo joy. Not that he ever doubted it, because he knew Byakuya was a surviver and needed no one to help make the best out of his situation. Hearing these accounts of Byakuya's happiness was almost enough to give Ichigo that same sensation, as if he could just bask in the other's well being through whatever bond they had left. However, selfishly so, with no degree of sincerity could he say the same when he found out that Byakuya was in a relationship with another man. It didn't surprise Ichigo. Byakuya had a way about him that made Ichigo speculate how anyone could get to know him and not fall head over heels, but surprised or not, nothing could prepare him for the feeling of desolation that reduced him, changed him. Such an emptiness sat inside of him that he thought he may have just retched all over the sidewalk that day, as if the news ate at his stomach lining and implored him to restore what had just been plucked from him. Only he couldn't, he had no choice but to continue on as a mere fragment of what he once was. From that day onward, Ichigo was a walking, talking chasm.

Ichigo was washed and ready to head for the train. That would give him plenty of time alone with his thoughts, not that he needed it. He was suppose to be working today, so coming back into town to celebrate the girls high school graduation was sort've a surprise. He'd bought them both gifts that sat wrapped on the counter. Before he left, he contemplated leaving a note. It felt weird. Grimmjow and himself never really told each other where they were going, not out of an obligation anyway. They rarely got involved in each others lives considering how much they saw each other.

A guilt made Ichigo feel as if he should, because despite them only being friends with benefits, they were friends with benefits that practically lived together. It was the courteous thing to do. However, he also felt equally as stupid. Grimmjow would probably see the note and scoff at it. Then he'd proceed to ball it up, get pissed that there was no food made, and wonder why Ichigo even cared to let him in on his whereabouts. Still, just in case, if only to ease the guilt that he really didn't need any extra of, he jotted down a quick note of where he was going.


	2. Chapter 2

**So this chapter is rather short, but it seemed like a good place to stop. I really dig cliff hangers. Ironically enough, you wouldn't know it, because I hardly utilize them in my stories. This story will have a ton though, so you have that to look forward too. Yay!**

 **Anyway, if there are any glaring mistakes, let me know. I'm kind've in a rush to post this and get to my other, more important stories. (Uhh…I mean homework..yeah..)**

 **As always fav/follow/rev**

 **Good vibes~ Ashes.**

 **xXx**

As the train was closing in on the station, Ichigo looked out the window with a hint of a grin on his typically scowling face. It wasn't quite often he came home, because it was a two hour train ride from Tokyo. So it had been almost two years since he'd been able to come back. He'd tried before now, but his scantily given day's off never seemed to coincide with the days of which his family were available.

It was funny how a person could tell how much they've changed by the way they'd perceive something differently. The last time Ichigo came back, he felt out of place, as if the streets didn't remember him and vice versa. Although it wasn't so much that he didn't belong, but that he didn't know himself well enough to know if he really belonged anywhere.

Now coming back felt more bitter sweet than anything. The memories were just as potent, but since then, he had found some level of peace in this makeshift life he'd crafted for himself. Finally, he accepted the things he couldn't change, like his mothers passing, or that he still loved his best friend and most likely always would in some way even if he could never have him. Mostly, he came to terms with the fact that, despite all that, he was still here. He still had to get up on his own two feet and trudge his way through the path he created one wobbly step at time. That he could do, and even though it sometimes felt less like a life and more like a series of meaningless motions, after so many years of dragging his feet, he looked up to see that he'd ended up somewhere completely different, but surprisingly, he didn't mind that place all too much.

He had a job he loved, a few people he considered friends, a nice apartment, and he even had Grimmjow for whatever that was worth or for how ever long that would last. He had a semblance of a life, and even if it was one without Byakuya, it wasn't too bad. Maybe one day he'd even fall in love again and put down some more permeant roots.

Even though he missed his home and wished he could just go back and redo everything, now he liked the town better this way. He needed to move forward and make new memories, and he couldn't do that if he was constantly reminded of the ghost from his past at every street corner. It was fine to visit his ghost, like in the way people visit a graveyard, but he couldn't stand in front of that grave forever. Karakura would always house a huge fraction of him, but he needed to start putting more of his heart into Tokyo.

Gifts in hands, Ichigo strolled at a tepid speed towards his childhood home. He reveled in the memories imbued by these monuments of his youth. First he past by the park he spent the better half of his life in one way or another. He saw two boys kicking a soccer ball back and forth with huge smiles plastered on their glistening faces. It reminded him of the summer he taught Byakuya how to play soccer. Ichigo laughed at the memory of how determined Byakuya was, as if he was training for the national team. Then again, Byakuya was always like that, determined to put his best into everything he did.

When they got to be a bit older, about seniors in high school, they'd go out to the swings at night, and Ichigo would bring his guitar. They'd share a cigarette Ichigo jacked from his old man's pack while he'd serenade Byakuya admits the cool, summer gust and limpid night sky. Ichigo, when Byakuya had a particularly bad day, would make up stupid little song's on the spot that were prevalent to his friend's situation, and Byakuya couldn't help but to crack the biggest smile he'd ever allow anyone to see. For Ichigo only, he wore rare smiles that were as big as this whole town.

After a few minuets, he past an old book store that looked as if it had been there since the town was built. It was one of those staples that, if it left, the town would never really feel the same without. Byakuya use to drag Ichigo there and read him these bombastic stories written by a bunch of dead guys. Sometimes Ichigo would act fraudulently agitated, but truthfully, he basked in those hours listening to Byakuya's creamy baritone. It would send him right to sleep sometimes, but then Byakuya would get mad at him for snoring so loud he could no longer hear his own thoughts.

Ichigo noted that the tsbuski tree was still flourishing in front of the shop. That was Byakuya's doing, actually. The pair spent a summer organizing shelves and doing menial task for the owners. Byakuya didn't need the money, but he liked working for the things he had, because he hated feeling like he owed his family anything. Mostly, Byakuya just worked there because he knew Ichigo needed a summer job, and both of their days were the happiest when spend by each others side, no matter what they were doing. They needed no words to convey this. Instead, it was a truth silently spoken in all of their actions regarding the other.

The last stop on Ichigo's ghost tour was the cemetery a couple of blocks from his family's home. Always, he would stop and regard the vigil with a few moments of somber silence. It humbled Ichigo, the realization that underneath six feet of dirt and a thin layer of patchy grass were whole lifetimes never to be unearth, and that the seize of these lives causes such a ripple effect that the pain of their passing could be felt throughout the whole town in someway or another. It both saddened and encourage him that these lives still thrived through the memories they left behind, but there was one life in particular that drew his attention every time he walked by this little section of their town. This was a person that effected all the lives they touched, Byakuya and Ichigo's especially.

It was not his mother he spoke of. She was cremated and sat as a permanent fixture to the alter Ichigo's dad had created in her memory.

It was Hisana.

For Ichigo, Byakuya was his first and only love, and while Ichigo may have been Byakuya's first, he was not his only. If only because of how happy she made Byakuya, Ichigo loved her too. She was bright eyed and bright minded, timid yet strong-willed, and everything she touched flowered just a bit more from the contact. Although, It was always the most dazzling of lights that dimmed the quickest, because after a year of dating Byakuya, Hisana died in a house fire. Like Ichigo's mom, It was completely senseless and sudden, and all the streetlights in the town seemed a bit dimmer after that.

Byakuya's light was the dimmest of all, and through watching the person he loved the most dwindle, Ichigo couldn't help but to dim himself. Byakuya was never quite the same after that, but Ichigo didn't care. He didn't love Byakuya for any reason other than the fact he was Byakuya, and no matter what evolution he underwent as a result of his lover's death, Ichigo, without question or expectation, still accepted him all the same. Eventually, day by day, Byakuya seemed to brighten a little more until the sorrow he gained from Hisana's passing was more like an injury that didn't heal just right. Looking back on it, he now realized it was their relationship that rekindled the flames the Ichigo had feared he'd never again see in Bakuya. At the time, he didn't completely understand why. Neither of them really understood what exactly existed between them or how powerful it was.

Sometimes he wondered if Hisana did. She was so caught up in Byakuya Kuchiki, and who could blame her, really? Only, instead of trying to direct the attention Byakuya always spent on Ichigo towards herself, she simply stepped into their scope. Often they'd all spend time together, and never did she seem the least bit jealous about their dynamic. Never did she try to infringe on the unrelenting bond the two had. Maybe it was because, like Ichigo, she just wanted Byakuya to smile. He could imagine Hisana shaking her head in amusement, wondering when they would get it together and realize what everyone else saw clearly, that their one true loves were each other.

On occation, Ichigo thought about what would've happen if Hisana lived. Would their love ever have had the chance to manifest? Would they have even actualized the veracity of their bond? Eventually, Ichigo thought so, because's one's mind could only out run their heart for so long.

By the time he got to his family's home, an hour had passed and it all felt like an instant spent in a blur. He walked up to the door and thought about just walking it, but he decided to knock a couple of times instead.

The door swung open and standing in it, donning a big, crooked smile and uneasy eyes, was Kaien, his cousin.

"What's up, loser!" Ichigo greeted before he dropped the presents on the porch to give Kaien an enthusiastic hug. "I haven't seen you in over three years. If we didn't share the same mug, I'd forgotten your face."

Mirthfully, Kaien retuned the hug, but something about it seemed lacking and uncertain.

"The prodigal son returns. " He picked up one of the presents and nodded for Ichgio to follow. "Your dad misses you so much, he's been using me for a punching bag in your replacement."

Ichigo arched an eyebrow as he stepped into the living area. "How long have you been in town? Did the whole Shiba clan come out to celebrate the girl's graduation?"

Ichigo threw his hands in his pockets and got on his tips toes to look over Kaien's shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. "Don't tell me Kūkaku's crazy ass is here cooking. She's liable to burn down the kitchen if she's left alone."

The brunette was playing with the nape of his neck, a nervous trait they both shared, and Ichigo noticed the subtle tones of anxiety in the air, but he wasn't too sure what the apprehension was all about.

"Well, actually, Ichigo, that's what I wanted to t-"

"Look who the cat dragged in?" Karin's voice sounded as she descended from the stairs.

Ichigo smirked a bit. "Hey, is that anyway to treat your brother?"

"One's who don't come home for over two years, hell yeah!"

He handed the brightly wrapped gift over to the girl and took her look of interest as a small victory. "What about a brother who came barring gifts?"

"Yeah, I see, trying to win me over with presents. You haven't seen me in two years, so it better be something I like."

Ichigo snorted and crossed his arms. "It's a free gift, so you'l like whatever it is. Give me some credit, I know presents have no effect on you, brat."

Shifting inside the bag, she took out a book and immediately recognized it as a copy of Fragment's of Horror by Junji Ito. Ito was one of her favorite authors, and even if it was just a subtle look, Ichigo could see the genuine joy the gift brought creep upon her seemingly unimpressed glare.

"Open it up."

She eyed him dubiously, but did so. The book had been signed personally by Ito and had a hand written message just for her. She let her fingers drift over it briefly before lifting her head.

"You actually did something cool. Who would have thunk it?"

Ichigo nudged Kaien playfully. "I think what she means is thank you. What an ungrateful punk."

"Don't worry," Kaien said as he patted Ichigo on the back. "She'll mature out of it a bit. Look at you, it's only been five years since you left, and you've mellowed a lot. Definitely still my same brat cousin, but I can tell you've mature."

"Living on your own will do that," Ichigo muttered. "There's something else in the bag for you."

The girl netted her eyebrows as she stifled through the bag, only to pull out a pouch of sake. Her grin turned impish. "Oh, Ichi-Nii, I never knew you were such a bad influence. I'm sort've proud."

He grinned but then put on a serious, almost parental look. "You're going to college in Tokyo, so that bottle comes with a stipulation. Your old enough to try the stuff, but I want you to do it safely. So when you get to town, come spend a night at my place, and we'll celebrate. Oh, and I shouldn't have to tell you this, but don't tell Goat Face."

"I'm not stupid, Ichi-Nii." She shoved Ichigo affectionally on the shoulder before turning towards the clinic. "Thanks, I'm going to show dad my book. He'll freak."

Ichigo smiled as she stormed out of the room bouncier than he'd seen her in a while. Kaien smiled softly and said, "That was nice of you to do. She'll appreciate having someone she knows in Tokyo, even if she won't admit it."

Ichigo shrugged his shoulder. "That's how we communicate. Karin doesn't need to verbalize it for me to know how she feels. Anyway, what were you saying earlier?"

Kaien pitifully grappled for words, only for his awkwardness to be covered by another person entering the living room.

"Dinner is almost re-" The newcomer's words hitched in his throat as he glared up at the two cousins standing side by side, and almost simultaneously, him and Ichigo's faces morphed into flagrantly incredulous glares.

In this town of ghost, Ichigo had seen many memorials of his youth that evoked emotions from him, but none as provoking as the apparition that stood in the doorway of his childhood home mirroring his utter disbelief. In fact, he looked back at Ichigo as if he was a ghost himself, and in a way, to this man, Ichigo was.

A long time ago, they had became dead to each other's vicinity, but at least on Ichigo's part, this man had never died in spirit. Ichigo carried him everywhere. Like footprints that wore in the roads of this town, the indentions he left on Ichigo's soul were permanent.

Silently, froze in this mutual moment of stupefaction, Ichigo observed his very fleshy ghost. He wore a heather hued, stitched cardigan over a plum tunic along with an apron that sat wonderfully against his lithe hips and a dish towel that was slung across his shoulder. His silky raven hair was up in a messy bun, and he had a bit of flower smudged on his cheek. How bewitching he was, Ichigo's very tangible ghost, and although the man didn't move through walls, Ichigo was sure he himself would never be able to reach out and touch him.

Ichigo managed to swallow the lump in his throat to form words, or more accurately, one word. Finally, he rasped, "Byakuya.."


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys, remember, comments feed plot bunnies. Actually, since this story isn't getting much feedback, l don't know when I'll post the next chapter. I'm not dropping it, but I should probably spend my time on the stories that have been better received, you feel?**

 **My creative writing professor is teaching us how to implicate symbolism and moods through the gestures the characters do and nuances of deeper meaning in the dialogue. I hope the work I put into this can be shown! Writing isn't just a hobby, but something I want to do for my whole life, and writing fan fiction is great practice.**

 **Good Vibes ~Ashes.**

" **Look at all this heart ache, what is there?**

 **Forget of how it started, this it how it ends.**

 **Ohh boy I know I done some wrong, and I paid for it, but its your turn to talk, for once i'm listening.**

 **Say that you don't want me. Say that you don't need me. Tell me i'm a fool. Tell me you've been tortured. Tell me you've been beaten, for what I've done to you."**

 **-Jacob Banks "Unknown"**

 **xXx**

When you're body is missing something vital, it will often give you physical signs. If you're hungry, your stomach will ache. If you're depleted of vitamin B, your lips may crack. Or if you're lacking in iron, you may have the urge to chew on ice. Even a person's brain won't allow them to stay underwater too long on their own volition. The human body, despite a broken soul, is a resilient force that knows what it needed, what it _craved_ , and had no issue in letting you know. That's why Ichigo was more than inclined to listen when it began rapid firing at the stimulus that was Byakuya.

The emotions that rushed him almost brought him to his knees. Maybe if he had of never seen Byakuya again, he could've kept up with the delusion that staying away was right for him, but seeing him now was like seeing a river after days lost in the Sahara Desert. There was no thought, just a reflexive necessity. In the way water was the lifeline of his body, Byakuya was the lifeline of his soul, and with him standing only a living room's distances apart, it was all Ichigo could do to stop the tremor's of a body that wanted nothing more than to be near him.

More than emotions, he was bombarded by questions. Questions like why wasn't he with this man or why did he never just pick up the phone? This was his best friend and one of the most significant people in his life, and he just left that all behind, but for what? Fear, mourning, a moment of existential distress, really, he ruined it all for that? A single mistake that he let mutate into an unhealthy lifestyle choice. Anytime, he could have just spoken to Byakuya, and if he knew his friend, all would have been forgiven. So why did he punish himself for so long? Seeing Byakuya standing there so simply, staying away from him for so long seemed utterly asinine.

Ichigo wanted to apologize, to somehow explain his heedless actions. Mostly, he wanted to remember what it felt like to be looked at with all of Byakuya's affections and his subtle fierceness. He wanted those eyes to shimmer for him, but he feared this would be more than he could ever dream of, because he certainly didn't deserve it. He could no longer say he was worthy, but he wanted to be.

Byakuya wore a stony expression and a cocked eyebrow that Ichigo knew as the infamous Kuchiki ice fortress. These were walls that often melted quickly for him, if they ever went up for him at all, but this time, they felt so impenetrable, fire proof.

He wiped the flour from his cheek and preened himself ever so slightly. "Kurosaki, I see you didn't call. That would have been the polite thing to do, seeing as we might not have had enough food. I'll set an extra spot out for you." At a loud banging sound and a yelp of pain coming from Isshin, Byakuya sighed. "Of course, it does not really surprise me. You are this brutes offspring."

Ichigo raked his fidgety fingers through his hair and simpered. Eye contact became arduous if not impossible. "Well come on, Byakuya, I've never cared about manners. That's not going to change no matter how much time goes by. Besides, Yuzu always makes enough for an army. It's a Kurosaki tradition." He found himself wishing he'd stop talking, or that he knew what to do with his hands as he kept positioning them differently.

Byakuya's eyes widened only marginally, and Ichigo could see the way his whole postured taunted. Like always, Ichigo could tell what the man was thinking. He was thinking, how dare you talk to me as if you didn't completely tear apart everything we had like it was some kind of parking ticket you weren't going to pay. It was more than justified.

The man cleared his throat, and he turned back to tread into the kitchen. Ichigo began to reflexively follow, until Byakuya stopped and said. "Yes, well, I don't know why I would have expected you to pick up a phone."

The words stopped Ichigo's forward drive like a fist to the gut, and his throat felt suddenly tight and his eyes misty.

Before Byakuya could leave, Yuzu ran in haphazardly, Karin at her heels, and threw her arms around Ichigo. "Ichi-Nii," she said.

Ichigo looked at the girl in wide eyed specter. Yuzu had hit a major growth spurt and was only a few inches shorter than him. He held her at arms length and looked her up and down as if he was sizing her up. A few tears graced his cheeks as he returned the hug. "There's no way you're my little sister. What have you done with her?"

"I haven't grown that much. Don't cry, Ichi-Nii."

"Yeah, you big baby. There's nothing worth crying for," Karin said as she crossed her arms and cocked out her hip.

He held the girl tighter, and he scowled over her shoulder at his other sister. "I'm not crying! My happiness is just leaking out, that's all! I missed you, kid."

"You're not going to say hello to your old man?"

Ichigo turned his head to see Isshin walking in from the clinic. "Yo, pops." He fretted his brow. "What, you're not going to greet me with a kick to the face?"

Isshin shook his head back and forward. "Things are changin', kid. You're too old for that now."

Ichigo glowered and blinked, but it quickly turned into a scowl. "Well, good. 'Bout time you realized that." He turned back to his sister, only to sidestep an airborne kick coming at his back.

"What the hell, old man?! I thought we were done with this?"

Isshin patted him on the back with a goofy grin. "Ah, I figured for old time sakes. Besides, you look like you missed it."

"Like hell I did! Why would I want to come home when I risk getting brain damage every time!? Do you gotta' aim for the head!?"

"There's nothing up there to damage!"

Smirking and shaking her head, Karin looked up to Byakuya who looked upon the scene with unsettled eyes. "Ichi-Nii and dad fighting like idiots, Pffh, it's just like old times. Is it weird I kind've missed it?"

Byakuya shook his head and wore a tiny, fragile smile. "If you are weird, than so am I."

Still in the middle of the same trifling argument they've been having for most of their lives, Ichigo said, "Oh, Oh, so because I'm your son? You use to run around saying how Byakuya was like the son you always wanted and how he could take my place, but you never sent flying kicks his way!"

"That's simple," Isshin said as he raised a pointer finger in the air, "Byakuya never went around insulting his dear old dad."

Ichigo scoffed, crossed his arms, and turned his back to the man. "Yeah he did, pops, you were just too dumb to realize it."

Isshin gasped and Karin slapped a knee with laughter. "Oh yeah, 'Kuya-Nii use to always say, 'insulting someone with tact is when they don't even know they're being insulted'."

Ichigo was drawn from the argument by a sight that had his eyes wailing. Both of Byakuya's hands were dipped in Kaien's double handed grasp in the same manner a queen held out her knuckles to be greeted, only with more intimacy. He brought the knuckles up to his lips to pepper them with soft kisses, and Byakuya's stature immediately unwound. When he cupped Byakuya's cheek and moved his lips in to join with the others, Ichigo's body unwittingly jutted forward, and he swung his arm out to the side to slice the air, almost as if he was drawing a line.

"Kaien, what the hell are you doing!"

Kaien froze as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. Byakuya merely looked over his shoulder and addressed Ichigo with an impassive glare before finishing the kiss that, though it was short and shallow, seemed almost pointedly sensual with the way Byakuya grazed his tongue over Kaien's slightly parted lips, causing him to flutter his eyes.

Byakuya turned to face a wide eyed Ichigo. "He is offering me affection as lovers do. Does this offended you, Kurosaki? I know how you feel about homosexual relationships."

Ichigo moved forward again, and his eyes were practically screaming. "No! I don't have a problem with you being gay. I'm-" He bit his lips and looked down to the floor. His cheeks were flushed, and sounds and lights seemed a bit overwhelming. His eyes shifted frantically across the floor, as if he was looking for something in the carpet. "No." He sounded so small. He felt so small. In attempts to fold himself up, he crossed his arms tightly. "I knew you had a lover, just not that it was-"

He cut himself off and took a big breath as he managed to lift up his chin and open his body back up. The smile he forced hurt, and his eyes sat like dewy mockingbirds, mimicking his souls pain. He could see it reflected in Byakuya's eyes that now looked somehow dimmer, heavier.

Just like Ichigo knew Byakuya's mask, he knew Ichigo's too.

"I'm happy for you, congratulations," he said.

Kaien stepped closer to Byakuya and placed a hand to his hip. Byakuya responded in kind, ghosting his fingertips over the ones that so gently touched him. Ichigo tried not to stare. "We're actually getting married in a few months. If you'd like, we'd love for you to be there."

Ichigo's chest looked as if it was collapsing on itself, and his words all came out a bit too breathy. There was a whomping in his ears, and for the life of him, he wasn't really sure what he said. Something like, "sounds great," he figured, and though he spoke with his eyes never quite meeting theirs, when he looked up, he saw that Byakuya had closed his own and dipped his head down marginally, something he only did when he didn't want others to see what was reflected in those expressive orbs.

For the first time, Ichigo noted everyone else's position in regards to theirs. Yuzu eyes were low and her smile half hearted. Karin sat on the stairs and scowled through the bars, and Isshin stood crossed armed against the mantle, distant yet vigil. When Ichigo looked his way, he gave an encouraging nod. The air was filled with carefully unspoken words.

"Do you want to help me in the kitchen?" Yuzu asked.

"Sure."

Ichigo nodded awkwardly towards the couple before he left behind her silently.

Yuzu started taking pockets of bread and ladling in curry. Ichigo did the same, and for a moment, they both worked silently.

"I'm sorry," Ichigo said, shifting his glare back and forth between the bread and his sister, "if I made things weird. Today isn't about me."

She stopped her work to look up with a bright smile and tear stained eyes. "Don't be silly, Ichi-Nii. I love you being here. Besides, what family doesn't have an awkward dinner from time to time?

"Then why are you crying?"

"Because I...I love Kaine, and I hate feeling the way that I do."

He lifted an eyebrow and sat the bread down. "Which is?"

She dipped her head with a meek frown, moved her hands to some left over dough, and plucked at compulsively. "That you and 'Kuya-Nii should be together," she said. "Everyone's always thought that. Even mom."

Ichigo smiled sadly. "Mom was a smart lady. Too bad it didn't rub off on me."

"Ichi-Nii, do you believe in meant to be?" she asked.

For a moment, Ichigo looked into the dough that the girl had been anxiously picking apart until in was torn into tiny pieces. "No. I think once in a lifetime connections come along, and they're meant to be whatever we make of them." He took the dough from his sister and started kneading it back together until you couldn't even tell it had been mistreated. "Don't be like you're dumb brother, Yuzu. I'm a cautionary tail."

The girl put all the bread on a serving platter before saying, "It's just one tail of many, Ichi-Nii, and who knows if this one is really over?"

"I don't deserve for it not to be over," he said.

"I think you're too hard on your self. If mom was here, she'd tell you that forgiveness is important."

"I don't have anyone to forgive."

She smiled knowingly and placed a hand on his forearm. "Yes you do, Ichi-Nii, and you'll never be okay until you do."

As she left the kitchen, Ichigo heard someone come in. He wasn't sure how, but he knew it was Byakuya. The man glided in and existed around him, merely gathering plates and silverware without sparing Ichigo a passing glance. He slowed his kneading and kept stealing looks at the man. He was too beautiful, frozen in his fraudulent apathy. Ichigo recalled this icy silent treatment well. "So," Ichigo asked, "where's the wedding?"

Byakuya's hand lofted on a plate, and he gave Ichigo an aslant glare before he continued to pillage. "I will not play this game with you, Kurosaki."

He pressed his knuckles hard into the dough. "Ichigo."

"Excuse me?"

"Call me Ichigo. Don't give me that Kurosaki crap."

"I don't address strangers so formally," he said, balancing the plates in his arms.

"You couldn't think of me as a stranger if you tried."

"And trust that I do try."

"I don't think of you as a stranger," Ichigo said as he took some of the plates from Byakuya.

"Five years changes people, and I didn't ask for your assistance."

"See, you haven't changed that much." Ichigo smirked. "I knew you'd say that."

Byakuya simply glowered and took a step back.

"And what do you mean a game?"

"This normal game. After the way you left things, you don't get to simply engage me in chit chat."

Ichigo dipped his head and chewed on his lip. "I don't know what I'm doing, Byakuya. I just don't want to hurt you even more."

"Oh, so now you think of me?"

"Who said I ever stopped?"

Byakuya tutted. "You're right, it's better if you say nothing at all." I

chigo gripped tightly to the plates. "I'm sorry, more than I can say, but we both know I could get down my knees and beg for your forgiveness, and it won't fix anything."

"If you truly think that, then I'm right. We really are strangers."

Ichigo frowned. His thoughts felt scattered. "Then, if that's the case, let me get to know you again."

"You don't get to do that, just bypass everything that happened and start anew."

"You're with my cousin now, so what I can say and what I can't, it's all complicated and mixed up."

"My apologies. It seems my presence in Kiaens life is an inconvenience for you. I suppose I ruined your plans of never having to deal with me or my _complicated_ emotions."

"It's not like that!" Ichigo hissed, "I mean, that's not what I meant."

Byakuya, hugging the plates, turned towards the archway with an exasperated sigh.

"I frankly do not care, Ichigo. I'm tired of trying to interpret your silence, and I have said all I can say."

Ichigo reached out, as he felt a great need to hold him there, to make him understand, to give his conflicting feelings life, but if he said what he truly wanted, that he would always be in love with Byakuya, it would only create a bigger rift between the two. If he explained, he lost. If he didn't, he lost. He didn't know. He just didn't know.

"Now if you'll excuse me, if you have nothing more you _wouldn't_ like to say, I'd like to set the table so I can brew the tea."

"I've already started it. No sugar, right?"

"Actually, I enjoy sugar with my tea occasionally now. I suppose this is something I picked up from Kiane in the past two years."

"You? Eating sugar?" Ichigo snorted. "It must really be love."

"At least, it is _something_." For a moment, he stayed plated, as if waiting for something else to happen.

"Hey," Kaine said from the archway, "You okay?" He went up and feathered Byakuya's forearm with a slight touch, and Ichigo felt a desire to break those damn fingers.

"Yes, I am fine," Byakuya said.

"Yeah, Byakuya managed to survive five minutes alone with me," Ichigo bit.

Kaien rubbed his nape and put on a lopsided grin. "Here," he said as he reached out his hands, "let me take these for you, Ichigo"

Ichigo jerked back. "I got it."

"Really, I insist. I'm going out there with Byakuya anyway."

With a sigh, Ichigo acquiesced and handed the plates over. "Fine. Whatever." After the two left, Ichigo burrowed his face in his hands and let out a muffled groan before he fixed the tea and walked to the dining room. He didn't put sugar in Byakuya's.

On the table sat Tataki fish with some ginger dipping sauce, Dango Jiru soup made with tofu, seaweed, and lotus, and now the curry bread. Everyone entered the room as well and prepared to take their seats.

Ichigo rubbed his nape as he took a chair. "I'm sure Byakuya picked out the soup, with his seaweed obsession and all."

Ichigo felt restless and out of his depth. He was dancing around their interactions with two left feet. Byakuya was right, they sucked at the normal game, but what was he suppose to do, just pretend like Byakuya wasn't there? Maybe he was. That's what he'd been doing for years now, right? Pretending like a whole part of himself was dead when it was still very much alive, throbbing and festered, being gnawed at too slowly to die, but just enough to be kept in perpetual agony. Maybe that's what Byakuya wanted, for Ichigo to keep ignoring him, because these brief encounters just taunted him with what he'd been trying to become numb to.

The sharp look Byakuya gave him made Ichigo chuckle oddly.

"I had to incorporate something of my taste, since not everyone can handle my affinity for spices."

Ichigo didn't want to hurt Byakuya anymore, and maybe wanting to atone for his wrong doings was selfish at this point, but after seeing Byakuya here, he didn't think he could just go back to his shoddy, cold apartment, back to fucking Grimmjow, back to a life full of smoke and mirrors. The wound of losing Byakuya had never healed. It had never even been treated. Ichigo just got use to it.

"I'm kind of a wuss," Kaien said as he caressed Byakuya's back. "Byakuya's spicy dishes are too much for me."

But, then there was Kaien, Byakuya didn't just have a lover, his lover was Ichigo's cousin, and the pain of it all wasn't just close to home, but standing within it. He couldn't explain his feelings regarding what happened between him and Byakuya without possibly hurting his cousin, and frighteningly, Ichigo didn't know if that fact even mattered to him. Still, Byakuya would always be there now, a permanent fixture in Ichigo's family, so he couldn't imagine any confession of love would be appreciated. It would ruin any chance he had of a friendship with Byakuya, and for just that, Ichigo's soul would bare the torturous lashes caused by watching Byakuya's heart beat in someone else's hand.

There was little wiggle room in this situation, so now it seemed Ichigo was destined to a hell of awkward silences and forced conversation, but if such a hell was the place where him and Byakuya collided, he'd basked in the flames.

The creases of Byakuya's lips curled just barely. "Or perhaps your stomach just isn't enough for my dishes," he said, and Ichigo found himself wishing to be at the other end of Byakuya's affectionate teasing. That, or at the other end of a sake bottle.

Conversation flowed steadily for a while, easing some of that build up tension, but Ichigo found himself in a trance like state. He observed Byakuya and Kaien, and their every gesture seemed to move in slow motion. It was as if his brain was telling him to watch closely, don't blink or he might miss it. The gruesome realities were a must see, so sit, watch, absorb. Notice all their subtle touches, or the way they can finish the other's sentences. He especially didn't want to miss the way their bodies leaned towards each other in the way a tree's branches grew towards the sun, or the way they could communicate with prompting looks and meaningful silences. Don't miss a second, his brain told him, because he'd need these images to torture himself until he accepted something he should already see clearly, that he lost Byakuya.

Watch, sadistically so. Revel in the ways it hurt in all the right places. Watch until your eyes bleed and then watch some more. Watch until maybe it stoped hurting, until the pain is the status quo.

The longer he kept stealing furtive glances, the more a heat began to eat at him. A heat directed towards Kaien. The two looked strikingly similar, and because they were only a few years apart in age, people had always compared the two, almost never in Ichigo's favor either. On his own, Ichigo would be considered good enough, but Kaien was a shadow that never really knew how big it was, bridging miles and years. Kaien was always just _more._ He was mellow and mature, philosophical and kind hearted, loyal and accomplished, and it wasn't that Ichigo was the complete dearth of these attributes, but his candle always looked so dim next the Kaien's wild fire.

Kaien was like the better half Ichigo never wanted, however, even if the constant nagging got old, he'd never taken it out on Kaien himself, because Ichigo genuinely respected his cousin. More so, despite their similar looks, Ichigo never saw himself as a variation of Kaien or vise versa, but now, as Kaien sat beside what Ichigo considered the best part of himself, all the resentment he never felt came frothing up. Byakuya was one of the few things that made Ichigo feel wholly unique, and with him sitting next to Kaien, a man who practically shared Ichigo's face, Ichigo couldn't help but feel like some outdated model. Byakuya found a version of him, a better version at that.

Ichigo's jaw locked, and his clutch tightened on his cup. "So, Kaien," Ichigo prompted, keeping a piercing glare on his cousin only. "How did you and Byakuya start seeing each other?"

Kaien's chopsticks stopped mid air and his face twisted marginally. A heavy silence followed, and everyone's movements became noticeably stiffer. "Uh, well, when I moved here for work, I came to visit Isshin and the girls, and Byakuya was here visiting the girls. I asked him on a date."

Ichigo's eyes widened, but he kept his reactions tightly wound. "Oh, I didn't even know you liked Byakuya, since you two had only met a few times before that."

Kaien kept pushing his food around with his chopsticks and waffling his gaze between the dish and Ichigo. "To be honest," he said with a smile, "I was always infatuated by him." He placed a hand on Byakuya's and looked at him with hearts in his eyes. "I always thought what I would do to have a guy like that. That if I had a guy like that," his eyes went back to Ichigo's, and they sat steady and challenging, "I would _always_ treat him like the gift he is."

"I see," Ichigo said lowly, dipping his eyes. When Ichigo's grip on his chopsticks loosened and his stature became limp and resigned, Kaien's friendly smile returned.

"That's not to say I didn't have my work cut out for me. Byakuya was weary about it. We we're just friends for six months before he'd even let me take him on a date."

Byakuya held a tiny smile the way someone held a heavy box. He cleared his throat, removed his gingerly, and looked distant as he glared down towards his plate.

Kaien glowered and said, "Anyway, how's life treating you in the big city? You working?"

Ichigo snorted. "What? You think I'm paying rent off my good looks?"

"You are a pretty good looking guy," Kaien said with a smirk.

"I'm a firefighter," Ichigo said "and I also teach guitar lessons to some of the underprivileged kids in the city. I set up this program where they can pay for the lessons by helping with menial chores around the station."

"That's great. You're not only teaching them a skill, but you're teaching them that nothing comes for free. That's a great lesson to learn."

"Yeah, I knew they couldn't pay with money," Ichigo said as he flickered a meaningful look towards Byakuya, "but I wanted to teach them about the hard work it takes when you're working towards something you care for."

"Yeah, yeah, but what happened to following in your good ol' dad's footsteps and becoming a doctor? That's a career you can bank on," Isshin said.

"Yeah," Kaien agreed, "I did find it a little odd you never went back to medical school. You were always too smart for your own good, the twenty third in your class."

Ichigo shrugged a shoulder. "I was twenty third without really putting in the effort. Maybe if I had gotten through school, I would have loved being a doctor, but it didn't end up that way, and I like where it did end up."

"You know what they say about laziness being the curse of geniuses," Isshin said, patting his son on the back.

"Then Kurosaki must be a regular Albert Einstein," Byakuya said.

Ichigo lazily pushed around his food with a sad smile. "Heh, well, I got the crazy hair for it. Anyway, I hope to make enough money to start my own school for teaching instruments, one day."

"That's a great ambition, Ichigo. You know, Byakuya just passed his bar. He's going into environmental law with this really progressive firm in Tokyo."

A warmth burgeoned in Ichigo's chest, and he found his smile growing. "Wow, just like you wanted. I know how passionate you are about environmental issues. Im..I'm really proud of you."

It was just a breath, but briefly, Byakuya's face softened in a seemingly sad yet nostalgic manner before he netted his brow, his stern and harsh features returning with a vengeance.

"Thank you, but my own pride is enough of a consolation."

Ichigo simpered, and he felt similar to a dog getting scolded by it's owner, as if, unworthy as he was, he'd do anything to get back into Byakuya's good graces.

Reading the air, Isshin quickly took to changing the subject. Too bad the direction change led them into even stickier territory. "So are you seeing anyone? Any girlfriends I should I know about?"

"No, not really."

Karin chuckled a bit at that. "What about that blue haired guy I met when I surprised you last year? You two were definitely more than friends."

The food fell from his chopsticks as Ichigo froze, and his eyes flew open. He had forgotten that his sister visited him one day after checking out colleges while Grimmjow was there. Not to mention, she dropped by right in the middle of them going at it, and the air just reeked of sex.

Byakuya's eyes darted up in bewilderment before they became darker, foreboding like a cluster of storm clouds. At the way his fist clenched around his cup until his knuckles turned alabaster with pressure, Ichigo's throat tightened, and he felt like he wanted to drown himself in the ginger sauce. What a complete hypocritical ass hole he must've looked like.

"He was just, uh, a buddy of mine," Ichigo said, stuffing another piece of curry bread in his mouth.

Karin smirked. "Maybe a butt buddy."

Isshin stared coughing up his mackerel at that. "Karin! Are you trying to give your dad a heart attack? What if your mother heard that kind of talk? I'm sure if Ichigo says he's just a friend, he means it. Right, Ichigo?"

"I mean, we are just friends, we're just friends that..well..that.. u-"

"Sleep together?" Byakuya finished the sentence, arching an eyebrow in sadistic amusement.

In the most matter of fact, lay all my cards out on the table type way, Ichigo said, "Yeah, exactly."

"Blue hair, huh? You two must make quite the sight. Well, I'm glad you're seeing someone, Ichigo," Kaien said.

"I see a lot of people. I'm seeing you right now." If he didn't know any better, he could have swore he saw Byakuya smirk at that, but he put the idea in the back of his head.

"Oh ya'll should see this guy. Totally out there, loud, rude, funny though. He's a lot like Ichigo only way worse."

Ichigo was thinking things couldn't get more awkward, but life seemed to take that thought as a challenge when it quite literally came knocking. At the loud, disruptive pounding coming from the front door, Yuzu excused herself to go answer it.

There were a few speculative murmurs of who it could be, but they weren't kept waiting for long.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? A family gathering?"

The familiar voice and maniacal smirk made Ichigo gulp, and just when he thought this day couldn't get worse.


	4. Chapter 4

**xXx**

Immediately going into man of the house mode, Isshin began to stand up.

Ichigo put out a thwarting arm before he stood. "Let me handle it." He addressed his bedmate with a scowl and a deeply furrowed brow. "What are you doing here, Grimmjow? Did you ride your motorcycle all the way here?"

"Oh, I got your cute note," Grimmjow said as he shook his head in ridicule, and if the red tips of his ears meant anything, the smirk on his face was not at all humored . "Since I'm seeing you, I thought it be rude of me not to make an appearance. Sorry," Grimmjow said as he flashed his eyes to Isshin, "didn't bring anything. Your son didn't give me much notice."

Ichigo's eyes flickered over to Byakuya who held his face blankly. Gesturing out an arm, he said, "Maybe we should go talk outside, Grimmjow."

"Ha! Oh no fucking way. I should get to know my boyfriend's family, right?" He said before he proceeded to pull out a chair, take a seat, and prop his feet up on the table.

Ichigo's eyes doubled in size, and his mouth grappled pitifully. "Bo-boyfriend? What the hell? When did we become boyfriends?! Were you going to tell me about it?"

Grimmjow scoffed. "Of course you don't get it." He balled up his fist and placed it to his mouth and looked aimlessly to the side as if processing something. "Ya' know, for a smart guy, you're really fucking oblivious sometimes. We've basically been living together for two years, Ichigo. We cook together, eat together, shower and fucking sleep together. Damn, we bought curtains together. What have we been doing? Playing house?"

Pitching the bridge of his nose, Ichigo sighed heavily. "No, Grimmjow, I bought curtains, you walked behind me threatening to beat up every employee you saw."

"I didn't like the way they were lookin' at us!?"

"You've been staying with me rent free while you have your own apartment. You're like a roommate that doesn't pay rent and bums off of me all the time."

"Oh yeah, and what? Do I pay you in sex?" Grimmjow said, chuckling through his nose. "Hm, so, I have my own apartment, but I stay with you every night. We sleep together, and you let me eat your food for free. What does that sound like?"

"A boyfriend," Karin said, only to bat her eyes innocently at the reproving glares sent her way.

"Thank Kami." Grimmjow flung his arms in the air. "At least one Kurosaki isn't completely dense."

Ready for this scene to be over, Ichigo walked around to Grimmjow and stood definitely in front of him. "Okay, you want to do this right here, let's do this right here."

Grimmjow waved a hand out in front of him as if telling Ichigo he had the floor, and Ichigo responded by knocking Grimmjow's feet off the table.

"You know what else we've been doing together for two years? Going cruising, seeing other people. Did we ever talk about being together? Did you ever say you wanted anything more? I'm not a mind reader, damn it!"

Grimmjow braced himself against the arms of the chair and launched himself up and right into Ichigo's breathing space. "Did you ever ask?!" At Ichigo's momentary lapse, he said, "Nah, you never do. You just assume shit like always."

"You were just out with someone last night!" Ichigo said as he pulled at the ends of his hair. "What am I supposed to think? You know that the moment anyone clings to you you're out the door, Grimmjow. You only want me because of how laid back our relationship is. Honestly, if we were really together, you'd be gone in a week."

"Bull shit!" Grimmjow said without hesitation, and Ichigo was taken aback by his bravado.

Grinding his teeth, Grimmjow dipped his head and swept a hand through his messy hair. "Maybe at first, but it's been two years, Ichigo. You don't think I've grown attached at all in that time? You never wondered why I chose to stay around you?" He thudded Ichigo in the chest with his pointer finger. "Didn't it seem a little weird? Shit, I was just following your lead. I all but stopped seeing other people after a while and only went out when you did. But you didn't notice shit, did you?"

For the first time, Ichigo noticed Grimmjow still smelled like alcohol. It was as if he rolled out bed in such a hurry, he didn't stop to shower. His fingers were twitching slightly, and there were nicotine stains on his lips from smoking, something he only did when he was stressed. There was something less confident about those brazen eyes, and suddenly, Grimmjow's weird behavior that morning made sense. New blossoms of guilt sprouted at the realization of something that should've been obvious.

"So you want to be boyfriends, huh? So the way you show me that is by driving two hours and crashing my sister's graduation dinner? How could I date someone that damn hot headed, and that's coming from me! You're thoughtless, Grimmjow, and I should know, because I'm just as thoughtless!"

Grimmjow's heat assuaged a bit at the words, and Ichigo shook his head as he ran a hand across his flushed face.

"You're right. We've been living together for two years, and I just never thought about it. Maybe I could have seen it if I had wanted to or cared. I really can be a thoughtless bastard at times," he said, chuckling pitifully.

"Well you see it now," Grimmjow said as he bolstered his chest. "I want more. So what's it going to be, Kurosaki?

Ichigo didn't even have to think about it. He already knew his answer. It was funny, he thought, the way the truth always seemed to catch up with you.

"I'm sorry, Grimmjow. I liked what we had, but I just don't... feel that way about you," he said with his hands in his pockets and his head slightly dipped away from the unbearable eye contact. "Honestly, I'm still in love with someone else."

"Is it Byakuya?" Grimmjow asked, and Ichigo jolted his head up as a result.

If it was at all possible, everyone fell even quieter, as if they were throttle by the thick tension that became almost tangible. No one said a word, and Ichigo felt suspended in a moment of disbelief as he stood there stupidly wide open.

Finally, he managed, "Whe-where did you hear that name from?"

Grimmjow still showed his teeth, but his eyes didn't look right on him. They lacked his usual feral luster.

"When you were moaning in your sleep this morning, you said his name. Not the first time either." He scoffed in a self loathing manner. "Shit, you must've done it over a dozen times since we met. Always whimpering, 'Byakuya, Byakuya', like it's haunting you or somethin', like it's a nightmare."

Ichigo felt as if gravity was working against him, and the room had grown smaller. It took all of him just to keep his eyes on Grimmjow's. He didn't even want to consider what he'd see if he looked at Byakuya. Surely none of his options would be gratifying. Pain, anger, or worse, Indifference, they'd all break him.

"Ya' know, you're not the only one who could be selfish. I heard you over and over again calling out to this guy. I knew it was tearing you apart inside, and I never once asked about him. At first, I didn't even care, but when I realized how I felt for you, it kind've hit me. Maybe I have your body, your time, but whatever part of you he has is way more important." Surprising Ichigo with a genuinely curious yet sympathetic look, he asked, "You've been feeling this way for a long time. It must have been eating you up inside, right?"

Ichigo sucked in a sharp breath and let it tumble out of his lungs with all of the jagged unsteadiness of a landslide. It was loud and evident in its suffering, shrill to the ears. His vision was floaty, and these stymie emotions blocked his airways. When he spoke, it was like vapors. "Yeah, five years is a long time..."

Grimmjow nodded in acknowledgment before he turned to walked away. "I'm sorry I waited so long to give a shit. Maybe if I did sooner, things would be different for us."

Ichigo's head whipped up as he grabbed Grimmjow's wrist. "Wait! I want us to still be friends. I don't want to lose another important person just because I can't deal with my own baggage. Maybe we can get to know each other better without all of the other complicated stuff."

Grimmjow smirked as he pulled the man in for a hug. "Yeah, yeah, who else's fridge will I come and raid?" He kissed the man on the cheek and said, "Let's go get wasted this weekend. We can find you a nice piece of ass to take your mind off of that loser you're hung up on. If you can't find anyone, I could always bite the bullet and let you do me."

In an affectionate and playful manner, Ichigo pushed him away with a roll of the eyes. "You're such a selfless friend, putting yourself out like that. Now get out before I kick you out!"

Grimmjow turned towards the door and waved over his shoulder. "See you around, Kurosaki."

The friendly smile Ichigo wore dropped instantly, as he knew once he turned to face his family, to face Byakuya, he'd have to face himself and all of the truths that everyone could no longer ignore. These unspoken complications could not just be packed away in a box and stuffed in the back of a closet somewhere to collect dust, and honestly, Ichigo thought this was probably for the better. For a long time now, he'd been needing to clean out that closet.

Only, before he could turn around, the shattering of glass echoed through the room.

Byakuya, who looked as if he had been trying to enact a strategic escape plane towards the stairs, was standing wide eyed over a broken vase. He dropped to his knees and began to apologize profusely as his shaky fingers worked to pick up the shards of glass.

"I am so sorry," Byakuya said.

"'Kuya-Nii, it's fine. We can probably glue it back together," Yuzu said.

Byakuya shook his head frantically, and he tremored like his body was finally succumbing to an unrelenting pressure. "No, it is absolutely ruined. It is unfixable." His hands moved clumsily, and he began to trip over his ramblings. "I-I would offer to buy you a new vase, but this one is special. You're mother gave this to you, and th-there will never be another like it." His voice rose only marginally and shuttered as his eyes grew misty. "It can not simply be replaced, but now it is gone forever!"

His hands slipped, and he cut himself with one of the shards. "Ah," he winced as he applied pressure with his opposing hand.

Kaien stood from his chair to aid Byakuya, but Ichigo was already kneeling at his side in an attempts to get a better look at the wound.

Blood dripped from the creases of Byakuya's fisted hand and droplets began to scatter the floor.

"Byakuya," Ichigo said as he took the hand in his own. "This looks really bad. Let me help you."

Byakuya jutted his hand away defensively, as if he was attempting to protect it from Ichigo. His eyes, vibrant and swelling, displayed cuts and bruises that were well beyond skin deep. Years of betrayal, loneliness, agony, they were like little sinkers that drowned Ichigo in his mistakes. They were so heavy against Ichigo's shoulders, but he held them all the same.

"You can not help me, Ichigo," he said as he got to his feet. "I can fix this myself."

As Byakuya ran up the stairs, he began to follow, only to have his movements encumbered by a hand on his forearm.

He looked up to see Kaien staring at him with sharp eyes. "I'll go help him."

Ichigo jerked his arm away and matched that unrelenting stare. "No way, I-"

"I am his fiancé, Ichigo!" Kaien said as he stepped closer into Ichigo's breathing space and dug his eye's in deeper. "Me, not you."

Ichigo tensed, and for a moment, his body stubbornly locked into place, but as the truth of the statement washed over him, Ichigo's eyes wavered, and his body deflated. "Fine," he said.

While Kaien ascended the stairs, Ichigo's muscles tightened as if he was willing them into inertia. When his eyes drifted over to his family, he saw Yuzu retrieving a broom and Karin clearing the table. His dad gave him a reproving look that ate at Ichigo's already festered emotions.

"I really don't need it from you too, old man."

Isshin shrugged a shoulder. "He has a point, Ichigo."

"You think I don't know that? What else do you think has kept me from decking him in the face?"

"I think you've made your feelings towards their relationship pretty clear."

Ichigo dipped his head and pulled at his hair with two hands. "Byakuya shouldn't be with him," he said barely over a whisper.

"Do you really think that's up to you to decide? You're smarter than that, son."

"It just feels wrong in my gut," he said.

Isshin's frown deepened as he walked over to Ichigo and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It always feels wrong watching someone you love be with someone else."

Ichigo looked into his dad's empathetic glare with a dewy denial and shook his head back and forth. "No. It's not about me." At his dad's dubiously lifted eyebrow, Ichigo said, "Okay, maybe it's a little about me, but I know Byakuya. If I thought he was really head over heels for the guy, I wouldn't even say anything, but something isn't right there." He shook his head again and looked to his father with bright eyes. "What if we miss out on something once in a lifetime because I say nothing. Don't we deserve that? Don't I deserve that?" he asked, only it sounded more like a question to himself that he could never quite answer.

"You do." Ichigo swung his head up as if he hadn't been expecting vindication. "But sometimes, we don't get what we deserve. Maybe you should go see your mom, talk to her. She always had a way of making you see things clearly."

Ichigo nodded and returned his dad's tiny smile as he wiped his eyes with his fist.

"Yeah, I think I will."

 **xXx**

In the back of Kurosaki estate sat a den that had been cleared out and was now utilized as place of mourning for the late wife of the Kurosaki family. In the center of the room, there was a kotatsu cover with Masaki's favorite lace tablecloth. On it was picture of her and her ashes, along with a few scattered mementos. Beside the picture frame was a pearl encrusted hair piece that Ichigo remembered his mom loved to wear on the rare occasion they'd attend a formal event. A few dry pressed tsutsuji - her favorite flowers - laid withered yet still somehow beautiful along with her wedding ring and some of her favorite books. There was even white tea candles and her preferred aroma of incense burning. It smelt of her, like jasmine and freshly baked bread, and Ichigo half expected her image to manifest within the drifting smoke.

Ichigo took tentative steps inside the room, and at all of the little reminders, his heart felt as if it was malfunctioning. Up until today, he never stepped inside this room. Like Byakuya, he neglected this wound until it's infection spread and caused damage he wasn't sure was treatable.

He kneeled down on a mat and used an incense to light a candle in her memory, and for a while, he just sat there. His tongue was empty of justifications.

Finally, after the silence became too daunting to bare, he said, "Hey mom, I'm sorry It took me so long to show up." His chest felt tight and sticky, and he could no longer impede the tears that implored to be given the attention they deserved. "It's not that I haven't missed you, you know? It's that I missed you too much." He looked down at his hands, empty and clumsy, and he thought about how they looked as if they were missing something. "I know that's stupid. I get that now. That's the same reason I lost Byakuya… If you were here, you'd probably knock me in the head for things I've done."

"I really messed up," he said, his voice aching like an old, abandoned attic brimming with forgotten memories. "When it came to everyone else, I was strong, but when life got to hard for me, I just ran away. I was a coward."

Sitting upright on the table was a picture album, and Ichigo picked it up and started flipping through the pages slowly, absorbing every photo and all the memories they depicted. He ran fingertips over the images, tracing outlines of his happiest moments, and for the first time, these thing did not feel like ghost. As if through his nerve riddled tips alone, he awoke parts of himself he thought didn't exist anymore. Like it was only yesterday, he could recall these little snapshots of joy. They were still apart of him. They made him who he was, and as long as these moments still remained, no amount of time could change the man who made these memories.

He smiled helplessly at a picture of him and Byakuya at the ice skating rink, and he could almost hear the way they laughed together that day. "Byakuya told me he loved me, and I messed it all up. Even though I loved him back, I messed it all up." He chuckled only slightly. "We finally got it through our heads, but not in the way you probably would have wanted. I said… such horrible things … things you would not be proud of. He told me he loved me, and I called him a faggot." He paused and shook his head in disappointment. "What the hell was I thinking? I had just lost you, and I was so scared, but that's no excuse."

Tears fell from his face and trickled down to the captured smiles of Byakuya and Ichigo. "Then I stayed away for so long because… I don't know, I didn't think I worthy." He plucked the picture from the flimsy cellophane and held it close to his chest. "I thought he'd hate me because I hated me!" Once again, he shook his head in defeat. "I was so stupid. Byakuya was like you in that way, understanding, and he always thought forgiveness was important."

Again, he looked down at the picture and glided a thumb over Byakuya's face. "Even after all that though, I don't know, I like to think I'm somehow worthy. One bad thing can't erase all of the amazing times we shared, right? Seven years… seven years I was right by his side. I would've done anything for him. I did do anything…. I have to forgive myself. I have to believe that I'm worthy of what me and Byakuya could have… even if… even if..." His voice broke, and the tears ran a bit heavier. It hurt so badly to say out loud. Speaking it made it real. "Even if I'll never have him again."

Ichigo jumped slightly when Byakuya came to kneel down beside him. Quietly, he lit a candle and closed his eyes as if saying a prayer.

When he opened them, Ichigo, with his head dipped, asked, "Did you hear all of that?"

"Yes," Byakuya said.

Ichigo held the picture of them in his lap, and his tight hold crinkled at the edges. He looked down at it, and softly, as if he was scared of the answer, he asked, "Why are you here?"

Byakuya looked down at the picture in Ichigo's grasp and then back up too Ichigo. "Because, you are right, forgiveness is important. Like with you, what happened between us is something I have never dealt with. If I left here today, I may have missed my chance at peace."

"And?" Ichigo felt like a kid hiding from monsters with the way he kept his eyes closed. He was petrified at what things Byakuya would say or what might occur after he said them. When he felt this picture tugged from his grasp, he opened his eyes to see Byakuya's head dipped in examination. He smoothed out the creases caused by Ichigo's thoughtless touches and held it prudently. After a moment, he looked up, and Ichigo saw a few tears cascading his still face.

"And I forgive you," he said.

With those words, a combustion of sobs escaped from Ichigo. All that repressed sorrow, it was given life with a bang. Finally, it took a breath, a big, gasping breath as it was finally told it mattered, as it was no longer kept within like some dirty secret. After being hid away for so long, it shot out with a vengeance.

Ichigo was tempted to reach out for Byakuya and bask in his comfort, to revel in the familiarity of his aroma and tender touches. So badly, he wanted that cherry scented affection and those pain stealing arms he could bury himself in, but these things no longer belonged to him. Only, when Byakuya came and wrapped his arms around him, Ichigo thought, if just for a moment, he could pretend like they did.

The touch only stimulated Ichigo's tears. It coax his pain out and gave it a home, a place to run free, and Ichigo felt as if he could finally let it all go in the forgiving arms of his best friend. He ended up between Byakuya's legs almost cradled, and he clutched onto the fabric of his shirt for dear life as he sobbed into the man's chest. He let out a harrowing moan and sunk into Byakuya as if he was trying to mold them together.

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so fucking sorry, 'Kuyakik," he moaned against the man's chest.

Byakuya caressed Ichigo's hair and held onto him as if he'd never let go. "Shh, it's okay. You're tears are at home with me."

The man's baritone was pure velvet, but it lulled Ichigo only slightly. "I… missed you so much. So much," he said just above a whisper. "I was so lonely without you."

Byakuya's embrace was constricting, and there was no more space to be bridged between them. "I as well, Anata."

Time passed in a blur, the only sounds filtering in were the thrums of their heart beats pressed together and a few sniffling tears. They were a whirl of pent up emotions and long overdue words, and Ichigo just wanted to live in that moment where things were simple and pure, but he knew he couldn't. He knew he had to let go before it became infeasible, and as he removed himself from Byakuya's arms, he knew this was where the real pain began.

For a moment, they looked at each other, their eyes puffy and skin splotchy. Neither of them wanted to disrupt the silence with words that would sound too much like goodbye. Ichigo looked down to Byakuya's hand. The blood was seeping through the bandage.

He grasped the hand gingerly and observed it for a moment. "This needs stitches," he said before he looked back up to Byakuya. "Do you trust me to handle that?"

Byakuya hesitated briefly, then he nodded his head. "Yes."


	5. Chapter 5

_Realizing he was in love with Ichigo was a lot like how it might feel to lose one's religion: A flash of existential horror followed by an oasis of freedom. This wonder of a man he'd spent such an important portion of his life with didn't change, Byakuya's perspective changed, and though it was frightening to breach the confines of what he knew himself and Ichigo to be, it was like seeing his life clearly for the first time. Finally, every piece that had been astray, that felt as if it had no where to fit, came together. Not only did he see the unequivocal truth behind the bond that grew between them for so long, but he was humbled and awed by it's raw beauty._

 _Yes. Realizing he was in love with Kurosaki Ichigo was like seeing life through brand new eyes._

 _It wasn't the same as meeting someone one day, dating, and then falling in love. Many times, when you're pursuing someone romantically, you hide your worst parts, making the love between you volatile and transitory. For Byakuya and Ichigo's story, they'd became themselves at each other's sides. With each other, there was no hiding or pretending even if they wanted to, and that was both magnificent and terrifying. There were somedays where you didn't even want to know yourself, where you wanted to go where no one knew your name and you could simply disappear, become one of many indiscernible faces, but with each other, that was never an option. They'd never allow one another to fade._

 _It was a cold February night, and Byakuya had been aiding Ichigo in his studies. He laid across a bed in Ichigo's dormitory with flash cards in hand, and for the fifth time that evening, he was quizzing Ichigo for an upcoming test. A very unenthused Ichigo spun lazily in a swivel chair, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Byakuya hid his lovestruck grin behind a note card marked with the term osmosis, finding Ichigo's subtle whining adorable. It wasn't too long before Ichigo was finding his entertainment in riling the other up by answering questions wrong that his raven haired counterpart knew he knew. Byakuya lied and told him he wasn't pretty enough to be dumb, and Ichigo said he was definitely bored enough to be. Somehow Ichigo had convinced Byakuya to put a hiatus on the wonderful world of organic chemistry and go on a walk with him, and despite acting put out by Ichigo's procrastination, thoughts of how Ichigo radiated under the mask of the moon was all the incentive he needed._

 _Eventually they ended up at the school swimming pool, and as they often did, Ichigo's 'little shenanigans' involved some form of rule bending._

 _Ichigo said something about how he could work out his excessive energy by doing laps in the pool, then he laughed and told Byakuya he could always see through his bull shit when Byakuya said Ichigo just sounded like he was dressing up his laziness._

 _The space between the two could be erased with a whole seven steps, but Byakuya stayed conscious of those mere feet and the secrets they kept. Like the blush that crept across Byakuya's face when Ichigo began undressing and the way his eyes followed the perfectly contrived curve of Ichigo's body as he stretched out in an ungraceful manner typical of him. Shamelessly, he watched Ichigo as if his every day movements were a captivating dance that only Byakuya saw._

 _Diverting his own lewd thoughts, Byakuya was chastising Ichigo for his predictable mischief. Ichigo's lips curled, and he asked, "Oh, come on, you're telling me I'm starting to bore you?" When Byakuya told him his wording implied that he had, at one point, found Ichigo's childishness a source of entertainment, a smirk could be heard through every taunting word._

 _Of course, Ichigo said he took that as a direct challenge, and Byakuya expressed he now feared for his well being, asking if Ichigo was planning something that could get them both in trouble. In a voice that Byakuya believed had to be intently sensual, Ichigo said, "Something like that," before starting to descend into the pool, leaving Byakuya feeling as if he, too, needed to submerge himself in water, preferably ice water._

 _Worried Ichigo might not reciprocate the feelings and find it hard to continue the same level of friendship as before, Byakuya had been biding his time, looking for signs that Ichigo could be as unknowingly in love as Byakuya had been. Such bedroom eyes and flirty implications being thrown his way were like Ichigo's unintentional manner of challenging him, telling him to step up without even realizing it._

 _For a while, Byakuya just stood in admiration, watching Ichigo wade. He knew how to swim, but not all too well, so he mostly just floated around. Byakuya inwardly laughed at the thought that the man looked like a clumsy swan gliding around in the water: Completely beautiful, yet utterly ill adept. He sat at the edge of the pool and denied Ichigo's pleads for him to join, reasoning he needed to keep watch in case campus security came. Byakuya poised that in such an event, he could just say his mentally challenged friend got away from him, and he was now retrieving his buddy. He then added that it wouldn't be so close from the truth. Ichigo mused that no one ever died from breaking a few rules, and Byakuya took no time in pointing out the logical fallacies in such a statement._

 _Admittedly, he loved the spirit behind those words, and Ichigo knew that._

 _An unsolicited thought popped into his head and threatened to sully his lighthearted time with Ichigo. He verbalized it if only because he told Ichigo everything. Still, even the thought was delivered in a snarky, unbothered manner. "If you truly think no one can die from rule breaking, you're severely underestimating the wrath of my father if he receives a call from campus security telling them his perfect son has been caught trespassing after hours." Byakuya's dad was the dean of students, so despite him being nearly twenty, his father would be informed. Ichigo knew so much of Byakuya's reservation came from fear of the older Kuchiki and a lifetimes worth of tyrannical child rearing_

 _Ichigo grew oddly serious, and his brown eyes smoldered under the illumination of the moon. With elbow's perched on the concrete beside where Byakuya sat and his body half out of the water, Ichigo boldly, yet oh so true to his courageous manner, declared he'd never let Byakuya's father lay a hand on him. Seeing the man was upset by the very notion, Byakuya overlapped his hand with Ichigo's wet one. Then he smiled gratefully, explaining that he knew Ichigo really believed that. Ichigo didn't like that answer, but Byakuya insisted that he was overreacting considering his father had never physically hurt him once in his life._

 _The expressions on Ichigo's face were lit by the pool lights that broke the rippling water, making it very clear the way his scowl softened and his eyes became as rich as chocolate. "They're ways to kill a man that don't involve laying a single finger on him."_

 _In an attempt to ease the other's mind, Byakuya said, "If you're referencing my spirit, I'm not a man who can be intimidated easily. You know better than to underestimate me, Ichigo."_

 _The only warning was a devious smirk that the devil would tip his horns to. In a breath, Byakuya found himself spun around with his back hovering mere inches above the water. Half of his body was still on solid ground, and Ichigo held him hostage in that position while laughing hysterically. He laughed too hard to hear Byakuya's scathing insults. Once he caught his breath, Ichigo told him he had ten seconds to take anything out of his pockets and kick of his fancy shoes - because the last thing Ichigo wanted to hear was Byakuya complaining about how Ichigo messed up his favorite pair of Ashton Grays. Even if his heart wasn't thumping fanatically from the way his head rested against the glistening core of Ichigo, Byakuya was in no position for negotiations. He conceded, telling Ichigo that he'd be the one dotting on him if he got sick, seeing as it was freezing outside, and he'd have to walk back to the dorms drenched._

 _He hit the water, only to remerge with quite the frown, sulking like a wet cat. The water weighed down his clothing and made it stick to him in not so comfortable ways. Trying to be clever, Ichigo told Byakuya he was being a total wet blanket, and Byakuya bit back a smirk at the corniness, unwilling to give Ichigo the satisfaction. It wasn't long before Ichigo was splashing water at Byakuya in attempts to coax him into some playfulness. It soon became an all out war for dominance, both men trying to one up each other by harmlessly holding the other's head under water. Ichigo had the upper hand, but the brat didn't play fair. He had a lack of clothing on his side. Eventually Byakuya found himself in a fit of laughter. It wasn't surprising. Ichigo could have him like that with little effort when he wanted to. Byakuya was so caught up he didn't even flush at the way his wrist were captured or how their bodies wiggled only a brush away from each others._

 _As their laughter subdued, Ichigo gave him a look of heartfelt affection that had Byakuya fully recognizing the lack of space between the two. Smiling softly, Ichigo said, "Good, you're laughing." When Byakuya cocked a dubious eyebrow, Ichigo told him that he could tell Byakuya had been in an off mood that day, and he wanted to cheer him up. Thinking back on it, Byakuya guessed he had been feeling more moody than lately that day, but he hadn't even noticed. Unsurprisingly, Ichigo did._

 _A silence filled with anticipation fell between them, and Byakuya knew if he didn't put some distance between the two, he would heedlessly take his friend's lips as his own. So he untangled himself._

 _After a while, the two were sitting on the stairs of the pool, talking aimlessly as they would often do. The conversations themselves were inconsequential, yet they held an importance that, at the time, was incomprehensible. Years later when the words were muddied and the finer details of their carefree conversations were forgotten, when they could no longer remember the topics, they would always remember how the words made them feel._

 _Byakuya sat with still face as he watched Ichigo with thoughts of how beautiful he looked with freshly damped skin. The water droplets caught the light and glistened like phosphoric jewels cascading down his chiseled physique. Byakuya talked to Ichigo about his father pressuring him into the pathway of corporate law when Byakuya's heart was set on environmental. His father was more concerned with the money that would be yielded instead of the personal integrity. In a way he didn't do ightly with others, Byakuya told Ichigo that he wondered if he'd ever be enough for his father. That made Ichigo serious again, only without the usual scowl that was so often paired with those intense eyes._

 _The words he said on those pool steps, bone drenched and trespassing, never left Byakuya. "You've done everything to make that man happy," Ichigo said, "but if you keep sacrificing yourself, then eventually, there won't be any of yourself left. Loving someone isn't trying to change them. it isn't trying to kill every last part of them." Just above a whisper, he said, "You're amazing, Byakuya. Don't let him strip you of that." Byakuya was afraid to open his mouth in response, lest the love swelling in his chest spilled out of him. With the way those eyes dug into him, as if there were so strong and could hold the whole weight of Byakuya's affection, he was almost inclined to let his confession fall from his lips._

 _Finally, he simpered and said thank you. Genuinely, he was so grateful for Ichigo._

 _Ichigo shoved him playfully and told him that he'd still need to brush up on his criminal law for the day he'd inevitably need a lawyer. When he noticed Byakuya shivering slightly, Ichigo frowned apologetically. The raven ate up the guilty expression. It was one his favorite Ichigo faces, if only because it was so rare. When they stood up and left the pool, Ichigo offered his clothes, saying he could just hightail back to his dorm in his boxers and undershirt. Byakuya accepted, of course, only after making a snippy comment that it was the least the other could do since his current state was Ichigo's doing._

 _It had always amazed Byakuya at just how close in build they were. They were practically the same weight - give or take a few pounds - and both the same height. Bothe were even equally lean yet defined with subtle muscles. The similarities only made Byakuya wonder how their bodies would compliment each others._

 _Although they were the same size, you'd never know it to see Byakuya wearing Ichigo's clothes. The blond liked his attire tight. Admittedly, Byakuya also liked Ichigo's attire tight, just not when he had to wear them. He some how managed to squeeze his wet body into the form fitting jeans and t-shirt. From his peripheral, he saw Ichigo staring helplessly, his mouth wilted and his eyes lidded. Byakuya remarked that his father was a lot of things, but at least he taught him staring was rude. The barely visible blush of Ichigo's cheeks had Byakuya inwardly patting himself on the back and wearing an amused smirk. Laughing it off, Ichigo told Byakuya that it wasn't too often he saw his 'stick in the ass' self show a little skin, and he was contemplating taking pictures for future blackmailing purposes._

 _Byakuya was still shaking from the cold, though he tried to hid it, but that was only one of the reasons he felt so surprised when Ichigo wrapped his hands around his forearms. Ichigo was always so warm no matter what the condition, but Byakuya didn't realize just how warm until Ichigo slid his fingers up and down Byakuya's cold, porcelain skin in hopes to heat him with friction. With his own hands resting near Ichigo's sides, the tips of his finger tickled against the man's alluring hips, and Byakuya found his body becoming hot at unnatural rates._

 _Call Byakuya hopeful, but this went beyond friendship. Ichigo would never do this with any of his other male friends. In fact, he'd probably just laugh at them and tell them they better run back to the dorm before they caught phenomena. Something about this touch was much more than a friendship, and as he looked silently in the others eye's, Byakuya was sure Ichigo was thinking the same._

 _Breaking up the moment was one peeved campus security guard. When his flashlight flickered in their eyes, Ichigo said, "Oh shit." He grabbed the wet clothes before telling Byakuya to run. In the midst of their get away, they could hear the guard yelling in pursuit, but they couldn't help the adrenaline fueled laughter and euphoric giddiness they felt while running through the locker rooms. With a little bit of quick thinking, the two took refuge inside of a storage closet. It was cramped and the only light was the moon filtering in under the door. Their bodies pressed close to one another in the nearly blinding darkness, and perhaps he just felt so in love in that moment, and the realness of it all was overwhelming him, but Byakuya couldn't seem to get his giggles under control._

 _Putting a palm over Byakuya's mouth, Ichigo said, "You gotta keep quiet, Kuyaiki."_

 _At the nick name that combined the last parts of both his first and surname - made by Ichigo eons ago in an attempt to further his endless taunting of the raven haired man - Byakuya melted slightly. He used his arms to brace against Ichigo, and as a result, he pulled them even closer together. As they listened out for signs that the guard had left, their eyes locked and there was a moment of wordless apprehension on both of their parts. Ichigo's eyes began to glide over every inch of Byakuya's face that only became so visible because of their proximity, and Byakuya stood with a palm still over his mouth, donning that same hesitant desire. If Byakuya knew anything about the Kurosaki men, given enough time, they'd act without any prompting. That look, he knew Ichigo was trying to work this all out in his head, make his mind understand what his body and heart already knew. Nonetheless, those beautifully intent eyes seared Byakuya with their painful yearning. Byakuya could see how badly Ichigo wished to remove his palm and cover the other's mouth with something else._

 _Ichigo licked his lips in preparation, perhaps thirst. Millimeter by millimeter, he moved his head. It was so slow that Byakuya wondered if Ichigo even knew what he was doing. He was sure the quiver of his lips could be felt against the callous flesh of Ichigo's palm, making his wanton just as apparent. Ichigo's own lips hit the back of his hand, and they gave each other all the permission they needed with one more joining of the eyes. They both knew exactly what they wanted._

 _As Ichigo slowly began to peel away that stymie hand of his, the only space between their lips, the only thing blocking them from complete certainty, the door flung open._

 _Ichigo gasped and reflexively threw the pile of wet clothes at the security guard, making the man stumble backwards and land on his ass. Grabbing Byakuya's wrist, Ichigo yelled, "Run Byakuya."_

 _Following after the man, Byakuya yelled back, "Don't same my name, Baka!"_

 _By the time the two made it back to the dorm, Byakuya had his back against the door and was bent slightly to bare himself against his knees with a need to catch his breath. With the same goal in mind, Ichigo's palm was flat against the door beside Byakuya, keeping him steady as he bent down and inhaled sharply. After his breathing steadied a little, Ichigo turned his head upwards to his friend and laughed. Byakuya couldn't help but to laugh also before he said that every day with Ichigo was always an interesting one._

 _Ichigo straightened himself up and stood in front of Byakuya with one palm still anchored beside the other's head. By the looks they exchanged, it was apparent that they wanted to pick up where they left off. Ichigo leaned in slightly and said, "Hey, Byakuya, I've been thinking t-" Ichigo cut off his own words and rolled his eyes at yet another interruption, grasping the phone that he could feel vibrating in his jean pocket that Byakuya was wearing. Byakuya didn't miss the blush that painted Ichigo's cheeks as he reached into the front pocket and dug out the phone._

 _Little did Byakuya know, this would be the last night he felt loved by Ichigo for a very long time. Only, as he saw tears building in those brown eyes and heard Ichigo yelling the words, 'Liar, she can't be dead,' that became the last thing on Byakuya's mind._

 **xXx**

"Byakuya."

Byakuya's head jolted upwards to see Kaien giving him a worried look. He then realized they were standing in front of their apartment door, and he wondered how they got there. It had all seemed to pass in a blur. He also noticed, for the first time, that the numbers on their door were crooked and wobbly, as if the adhesive was wearing off.

"You have the keys," Kaien said.

Byakuya made a noncommittal noise as he plucked the keys from his pocket and handed them over to Kaien.

Kaien put the key in the lock and wrestled with them for a few moments. This was typical. The latching mechanism was faulty and the key didn't want to stick, but Byakuya never minded it before tonight.

The door swung open, and they entered into the kitchen. Kaien turned the light on, and Byakuya hesitated briefly. Something seemed off. It felt similar to walking into your house and just knowing something had been moved, only it was the whole ambiance. It felt different, somehow darker. Byakuya looked up to the light fixture and saw one of the bulbs was dimmer, on the verge of burning out. He wondered how long it had been like that and why he hadn't noticed all these little errors before.

He shook it off as he retrieved a tea kettle from atop a burner. It felt as if his body was dragging through the mundane, yet simple procedure of filling the kettle with water and placing it on the stove. When finished, he turned around to see Kaien standing by an island in the middle of their kitchen with his palms pressed against the granite. He chewed at his lip and donned a conflicted look, and there was a silence that was almost as impeding as the island between them.

Byakuya stood parallel to him, the length of the island separating them. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

Kaien propped his elbows up on the counter and dipped his head. His form was deflated and hunched. Then he swiped a hand over his face and said, "I really don't want to have this conversation."

With a sigh, Byakuya turned his back to the man and took the few steps that stood between him and the sink. He noted a couple of dishes that needed washing, so he turned on the water and took some soap out of the bottom cabinet.

"Then don't have it," Byakuya said.

He heard Kaien's indignant scoff, and Byakuya thought how, when he wasn't looking at his fiancé, it sounded as if Ichigo was standing behind him.

For all the ways the two cousins resembled each other, some might think Byakuya choose Kaien because of that, but it was quite the opposite. It was their similarities that made Byakuya the most apprehensive. He didn't want to think about Ichigo every time he looked into the eyes of his lover. It took six months of friendship before Byakuya saw Kaien as just Kaien, and their subtle differences started to out shine their likenesses. When he didn't look, however, and he just listened, Byakuya would find himself assaulted by the eerily hopeful sensation that he'd turn around and see Ichigo standing in Kaien's place, almost as if he'd always been there.

"You think we should just ignore our issues?" Kaien asked.

Byakuya's applications slowed on the plate he was washing, and even if they were already clean, he started going over spots again and again.

"That's not what I meant. I'm simply stating that, if the topic makes you so uncomfortable, perhaps now is the wrong time to discuss it."

"Waiting for the right time would mean waiting forever."

There was more silence, and once Byakuya had cleaned the dishes beyond reason, he grabbed a towel and began to dry them.

Kaien sighed and said, "We can't just ignore it, Byakuya. Not anymore."

Byakuya halted his hands and asked, "What is it you want to speak about?"

"About all the things we don't ever speak about."

Just as slowly as he'd been moving all night, Byakuya walked over to the cabinets and put away the dishes. Not meeting Kaien's eyes, he turned back to the sink and looked for something else to do.

"That is rather vague, don't you think?" Byakuya said as he bent down and removed some cleaning solution and another rag from below the sink. The counters were spotless, but he wiped them off anyway.

"We need to talk about Ichigo," Kaien said, approaching the subject in the same manner one might approach a hostile animal.

As if he didn't hear him, Byakuya scrubbed harder at the counter, putting all of his strength into removing dirt that just wasn't there. "What about Ichigo?"

Kaien chuckled pitifully. "I guess it be more right to say we need to speak about you and Ichigo… You're still in love with him, right?"

Byakuya stopped his feckless rubbing and braced his palms against the countertop. "Kaien…"

"Don't Kaien me," he said, though with little anger backing his words. "And will you please turn around and look at me?"

There was a brief hesitation before Byakuya carelessly flung the rag on the counter and turned to face his fiancé. Kaien nodded as if he was pleased, but his eyes spoke of uncertainty. He folded his arms and bolstered his chest, and it looked as if he was situating himself to better stand off against an opponent.

Their eyes locked again. "Are you still in love with Ichigo?"

Byakuya blinked a few times, and his voice evaded him for an instant. "I am marrying you, Kaien."

"That's not what I asked," Kaien said. He looked withered as he forced their eye contact. There was a sort've resigned sadness in them that made Byakuya squirm, as if they knew things that Byakuya himself did not.

He moved around the island, and Byakuya reflexively took steps back until he hit the sink. Kaine leaned against the granite counter. Face to face, with only a foot separating them, they felt closer than ever.

Kaine dropped his arms. "I'll ask you again. Are you in love with Ichigo?"

Byakuya felt restless, fidgety and backed into a corner of his own torn emotions. It was only his pride that kept him from running. "I love _you_."

Kaien closed his eyes and let out a breath. "But you love him more." He opened his eyes to see Byakuya wearing a look that was somewhere between disapproval and defensive.

After a moment, Byakuya tutted.

"This is ridiculous."

"Just admit it."

"I will do no such thing."

Kaien took a step forward, his movements as strained in their control as his voice.

"Say it out loud."

"No."

Again, he took another step. This time, he ended up a mere inch away from Byakuya with his palms gripping the counter on either side of his fiancé, locking him in place. Byakuya's eyes were misty and his breath all but gone.

"Say it," he said just barely over a whisper.

"Stop," Byakuya said, dipping his head.

He felt like he was spinning when Kaien grabbed his chin and kissed him fiercely. Out of pure habit, Byakuya opened his mouth and allowed their tongues to do somersaults around each others until they were both dizzy.

The kiss broke almost as soon as it started, and Kaien looked at him with those sad eyes. "When I kiss you, can you honestly say you're not disappointed to not see Ichigo when I break away?"

Byakuya pointed his chin in disobedience, but his stubbornness was bastardized by the shaking of his hands. His whole body felt like a condemned building that was one strong gust away from tumbling.

"Say it," Kaien said once more.

"And what if I do!?" Byakuya said, perhaps louder and more tempestuously than he'd ever said anything during their relationship. "Do I not get a say in who I chose to spend my life with? Am I just a victim to my emotions?"

Again, Kaien shut his eyes, only this time he did so as if willing them never to open again. He pushed off the counter and moved beside Byakuya, his head dipped over the empty, cold steel of the sink as if he could gather strength from it.

He pinched tightly onto the bridge of his nose while the other griped onto the counter. "This is so hard," he muttered, "but the truth is hard, huh?" A pause. "I didn't want to say anything, because I don't want to lose you, but not saying anything, well, it's like dying slowly. It's less painful, but it never seems to end." He shook his head. "I'm tired, Byakuya. I feel trapped in this bull shit, and I _can not_ do it anymore."

Byakuya's eyes screamed, and it felt as if his body was being flushed of all its clarity and replaced with the nonsensical ramblings of another person. His heart was galloping through him as if trying to outrun imminent danger, but his head simply couldn't keep up.

Byakuya turned to face Kaien and dug fingers into his forearm. "What are you trying to say? Ar-are you leaving me?"

Kaien tilted his head up towards Byakuya with pure agony oozing from his every pour. "Don't make me out to be the bad guy, Byakuya. I don't want to leave you. I love you the way you love Ichigo."

A few tears rolled down Kaien's face as he turned back towards the sink and shook his head.

Byakuya clung tighter to his arm, almost as tight as his throat clung to itself, and he pulled the man closer until his mouth was at Kaien's ear. "I am not a man to beg, Kaien. So understand how earnest I am when I say please do not go. I told Ichigo that I can not see him, because he confuses me. It is you I choose to come home to every night. Does that mean nothing? We can make this work, ju-" He closed his eyes as he cut himself off. The diction of his words as they were pushed from his lungs were like ghost, only whispers of what they should've been. "Please…"

Kaien ran a hand over his downturned face and let out a sigh that sounded clogged, like a broken garbage disposer. He turned towards Byakuya and caressed his cheek as if it was the last time.

"Maybe if you had of seen Ichigo today, and he was clear that he didn't return your feelings, then you really could've moved on, but that's not what happened. If we tried to make it work, and you just left all of those what if's sitting there, you'd always be cheating. Cheating yourself and cheating me." Kaien brushed Byakuya's cheek a few more times, and his voice cracked under the pressure of the tears he tried to encumber. "I won't do that to me, and I especially won't do it to you."

The familiarity of those words made Byakuya go listless as his thoughts floated back to earlier that day.

 **xXx**

 _In the Kurosaki clinic, Byakuya sat on an examination table with his legs dangling off the side while Ichigo gathered his equipment. Between them sat a suffocating silence that only grew denser with every second they said nothing. This was not your typical awkward silence experienced between two strangers who didn't know what to say to each other. On the contrary, there was too much to say. They were swimming in unarticulated emotions, drowning in them, and the only way to come up for air was to simply spit them out, but where to begin?_

 _How do you begin a sentence that might be the first word of the last chapter you have with someone? Byakuya wasn't sure. The two could do passive aggressive. They could do earnest, but normal? Normal was a far away land shrouded in obscurity. To get back to that would mean a scabrous journey to a place that might not even exist, and honestly, Byakuya didn't want to find out if it did. Maybe normal wasn't the thing of fairy tales and bedtime stories for them, but something were better left undiscovered._

 _As Ichigo moved around the room, their contact was bumbling and uncertain, like two novice dance partners who kept stepping on each others toes. Finally, with all items gathered, Ichigo tended to Byakuya's hand._

 _They both kept their eyes glued to the wound as Ichigo unwrapped the blood drenched bandage and threw it away. "Wheres Kaine?" Ichigo asked, lifting his eyes to meet Byakuya's. They both broke away their glares as soon as they joined, like two people who got caught staring from across a room._

" _I told him that I needed to speak with you, and that he could head back to our apartment in the meantime. He insisted on waiting."_

 _Ichigo made a noncommittal noise as he dabbed Byakuya's finger with antiseptic. "I can't say I blame him," he said just above a murmur._

 _While placing the stitches, there was no more conversation. Byakuya figured that was for the best. As Ichigo finished, they both went to speak at the same time._

" _Ichigo."_

" _Look, Byakuya."_

 _They faltered, and Byakuya said, "You first."_

 _Ichigo smiled sheepishly. "No, you go ahead."_

 _A wistful sigh tumbled from Byakuya as he looked into the newly healed appendage sitting listlessly in his other hand. "I can not be around you anymore, Ichigo," Byakuya said._

 _Ichigo's eyes rounded as he removed his gloves. "What? Why?!"_

 _Byakuya lifted his head up, and Ichigo's eyes looked similar to blades of grass glistening against the first peak of sunlight. "You know why, Ichigo," he said, his typically stoney voice softened, almost imploring in it's gentleness._

" _Because of Kaien? What, does he not want me around?"_

 _Byakuya shook his head. "No, because I can not simply detach myself from the emotions I have towards you...I am with Kaien now, an-"_

" _I knew this would happen," Ichigo said. He pulled at his hair and began pacing as if brainstorming, desperate for another solution. "This is why I stayed away for so long."_

" _It was you staying away for so long that made things the way they are now," Byakuya said, and hint of anger resurfacing._

" _I know," Ichigo said, blinking his dewy eyes, "but I just thought… I knew, but I hoped…"_

 _Byakuya cleared his throat, and he draped his face and voice in a facade that he hoped made him appear stronger than he felt. "This means we'll be able to move on from this finally, now that it's been actualized."_

 _With a great dither, Ichigo began throwing away his supplies, practically slamming each one into the wastebasket. "Why? Why hold me like that if you were going to tell me I couldn't even...I couldn't even be around you anymore?"_

" _Because," Byakuya said, his voice low as if he was was trying to muster confidence from the depths of his gut, "I will always be there if you need me, Ichigo."_

" _Yeah, and who says I don't need you always?!"_

" _Ichigo…"_

" _Alright," Ichigo said as he took a position in front of Byakuya, arms crossed and full of that Kurosaki resolve. "If you can't be around me while you're with Kaien, than be with me." He stepped closer, and Byakuya face went porous. "Choose me."_

 _Byakuya's eyes tapered into sharp, little bullets. "How can you say something like that? How can you speak as if none of what happened between us occurred?"_

 _Although his voice softened a bit, Ichigo's stubborn glare was unbendable. "I'm not! I know what I did, Byakuya, but I gave my apologies and my reasons. All I can do is go forward and try to make it better."_

 _Byakuya dipped his head and closed his eyes. "Something are better left in the past, Ichigo," he said, only to gasp at the fingers he felt grab his chin and forcefully pull his face up._

" _Look at me, Byakuya," Ichigo said, his hand braced against the table as he arched closer to the other man. Their eyes locked, and Byakuya stared back just as definitely, saying wordlessly that he would not be malleable to Ichigo anymore. "Who says it's better left in the past? We can run from it, but it will always be here," he said just above a whisper as he ran a thumb over Byakuya's bottom lip. Byakuya tried not to shudder at the familiarity of that callus skin. "Just like it is now, in the present. I messed up big time, but I have seven years of evidence to back me up when I say that I'm more than that mistake. Don't we deserve more than that, letting one mistake ruin everything that we could possibly have? I don't want to hurt Kaien, but If it means losing you forever… I can't let that happen. "_

 _Byakuya's eyes shifted and grew smaller, wetter, as if fighting a losing battle, and he knew that Ichigo understood the internal war he was fueling, but Byakuya also knew he wouldn't call a cease fire. "Byakuya, if you can look me in the eyes and say you'll be happy with Kaien, I'll walk away right now and you'll never see me again."_

 _Once again, Byakuya shut his eyes and squeezed out the excess water. When he opened them, his body shuttered against Ichigo's touch. "It is not that there will be no happiness, just that there will be no you."_

" _And you're okay with that?"_

 _Byakuya sucked in a heaping breath. "I can learn to be."_

 _Ichigo shook his head in determent, and his mouth just barely hovered above Byakuya's. "If we don't give this a fair shot, everyone we're with will always be fighting against everything we could've been. I know you, Byakuya, just like I know that what we have isn't something that comes along twice." Between them, all he could feel was mounds of hot breath and quaking lips. Through the vibrating humidity, Ichigo said, "Just like I know you want me to kiss you right now."_

" _And I know you won't," Byakuya said, his eyes fluttering._

" _You're right," Ichigo agreed, moving his lips and pressing them to Byakuya's forehead. Against the skin, he whispered, "I won't make a cheater out of you, and I especially won't take advantage of you when I know how mixed up you're feeling."_

" _Let go, Ichigo. Let go so I can let go."_

 _Byakuya felt all of Ichigo's resistance through the breaths that he took and the way his body seemed to tighten. Finally, Ichigo released him and took a step back. He dipped his head and said, "So that's it? I'll never see you again?"_

 _Ichigo's voice sounded so small, and Byakuya wanted nothing more than to build it up. He closed his eyes and damned his tattling body, the way rumbled and leaked._

" _I am marrying into your family, so I can not say for sure, but it is probably best they we keep our distance."_

 _Ichigo looked up, his eyes stretched to their fullest, blatant in their fear. Byakuya wanted to hold him close again, to cradle him like a child and tell him these moments were just monsters under the bed, illusions of the darkness. Instead, he stood to take his leave, but he stay there for a while, his body and soul not as willing to walk away as his mind._

 _Ichigo walked towards him slowly, and he wrapped his arms around Byakuya. He could feel Ichigo's tears on his neck as he held him in a tight embrace. Byakuya's hands drifted just above Ichigo's back, and he so desperately wanted to return the gesture, but he feared he might never let go._

" _If that's what you want, I'll leave." He squeezed Byakuya tighter. "I will_ _ **always**_ _love you."_

 _He ripped himself away in the same way someone would pull off a bandaid, and then he rushed towards the exit, but not before Byakuya saw him lift his fisted hand to his mouth to muffle his sobs._

 _Just like that, Ichigo was gone, and Byakuya felt numb._

 **xXx**

Byakuya never knew a lack of something could be so bold, but all the silences he endured today were ear splitting. They stood side by side, neither looking at the other, and Byakuya didn't think he could handle another goodbye.

A part of him wanted to be angry. I gave up Ichigo for you, he thought, but he knew that wasn't the true. It was never for Kaien. Kaien was just his excuse.

It was the whistle of the tea kettle that reminded them the world was still spinning rather they involved themselves or not.

Byakuya felt thankful for the distraction. He busied his hands with the trifling task, stumbling through the motions. As he poured water into two mugs, he said, "The way you speak, it is as if you're telling me to run into Ichigo's arms."

"Maybe you should."

He shook his head in ridicule, and every movement he made was backed up with a forcefulness that was abnormal for his usual fluidity.

"I know you don't trust him after what he did, but may-"

"It is not so much that I do not trust him," Byakuya said as he sat down the kettle with a bang, "but that I do not trust myself. I was so dependent to that boy, that when he left, I felt uprooted. As if my whole identity was in loving him. I don't want to be that vulnerable to someone."

Kaien let out an airy, humorless chuckle. "Not like you are with my, right?"

Byakuya's face took on a touch of guilt. "Kaien, I didn't mea-"

"I know what you meant, Byakuya," he said as he walked over to the island and leaned against it, head dipped towards the granite. "I won't lie and say it doesn't hurt, but I don't hold it against you." A pause. "When I use to come down and visit, and Ichigo would pop up with you at his side, I thought you were perfection on legs, that he was the _luckiest_ guy." He let out a wet laugh, and there was something authentically nostalgic in it. "I was struck."

Tears he could not suppress began to run down Byakuya's face as he walked over to Kaien, wrapped his arms around his waist, and rested his forehead against his shoulder blade. Kaien tensed briefly, but then firmly griped onto Byakuya's arms, and Byakuya could feel Kaien's tears stopping up his breathing, but selfishly, he claimed that comfort as his own once more.

"In most relationships, they're runners and they're chasers," Kaien said. "It's been said a thousand times by a thousands different philosophers. For some reason, humans always want what's unobtainable to them. You were never scared of your feelings towards me, because you were the runner, and you knew you'd always look back and there I'd be."

"Kaien…"

"It's okay, Byakuya. I think I always knew that. There's something to be said about runners who chose to slow down for another person, who can see past their natural inclination to run because the other person makes them better, happier." He let out a longing sigh. "There's a beauty in that… but sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, there is no runner or chaser, and that's the most beautiful thing. That's you and Ichigo," he said, holding tighter to Byakuya's arms, "I won't take that away from you, and you shouldn't let your fear take that away from you either."

Byakuya was not a crying man. At the very least, he did not flaunt his tears. In fact, even with knowing each other intimately for almost three years, Byakuya had never cried in front of his now ex lover, yet much like Ichigo broke apart in his arms, Byakuya was doing the same in Kaien's. Openly, he was all but sobbing against the fabric of Kaien's dress shirt, and he understood why.

Kaien was his novocaine, a companion wrapped up in blissful ignorance, a sanctum high above his reality that filled him with such a warm numbness. Kaien was his drug, and Byakuya was doped up on denial. With him leaving so abruptly, Byakuya was hit with sudden withdrawals, his body taken by the cruelty of tremors, shocked and consumed as he was purged from this narcotic, but there really was no way to do this sort've thing gradually, was there? All around him, it felt like glass was shattering, letting in a light that was all too bright to take as he was dragged from his rabbit hole.

Kaien's leaving felt a lot like when a doctor said ' _this is going to hurt'_ , and god, did it ever. Like Ichigo, he, too, had attempted to put a band-aid over a flesh wound, using novelty and denial to quell the pain, but it did no good. Kaien saw that, and by leaving, he was trying to clean the scar that Byakuya neglected. Apart of Byakuya would always love Kaien for being that type of man.

Finding the strength to stop his tears, Byakuya said, "It was never contrived with you. I want you to know that I truly love you."

Kaien sighed, and Byakuya could tell he was smiling. "I know you do in your own way."

"I do not want to lose you."

Kaien turned around and held Byakuya face to face. He smiled in his sweet way that Byakuya always appreciated even if he never said it. It wasn't fraudulent, but optimistic, as if Kaien just saw the light in all the darkness. "You'll never lose me. I'll always be here for you," he said as they rocked slightly in their mutual embrace. "Maybe we just met at the wrong time. If for whatever reason things don't work out with Ichigo and we find our way back to each other, than that's beautiful too... but I think it will."

"Just because you are leaving me, does not mean I will be with Ichigo."

"Byakuya, I can't tell you what to do, but don't you want to find out if you two could be _something_?"

Byakuya chewed at his lip and clutched tighter to Kaien. "I am so angry at him, so angry with myself," he said. "I want to forgive him. I said I did, but I can not erase all the venom his betrayal put in me."

"Healing isn't a game of connect the dots, Byakuya. It's a maze, and forgiving Ichigo was just the start. Be angry and hurt, work your way through the maze, even if it's backwards sometimes." Kaien caressed Byakuya hair and cradled those sincere, gray eyes with his own. "But work through that anger and hurt with him, not by yourself."

"I'll consider it," Byakuya said as he leaned his forehead against Kaien's collarbone and soaked up his scent. "I do believe this is the most earnest we've ever been towards each other. Isn't it ironic, we are the closest in the moments we are separating?"

"We knew if we were completely honest, it would lead to this."

Both tilted their heads back and looked at each other, and with wordless communication, they leaned in at the same time for a kiss. It was the type of kiss that you could feel every where. It was sweet and wonderfully erotic, and Byakuya never knew goodbye could taste so good. Maybe because it was laced with such a freedom.

Lips against lips, Kaine asked, "One more time. Can I know what it feels like to wake up inside of you one more time?"

Tomorrow, him and Kiane would talk more extensively on the semantics of their separation. They'd discuss painfully necessary things, like who would live where or who would keep what. They would distance themselves, because it was the only way, and then separately, they'd mourn the love that could've been so much more in a different time and place. Tonight, however, they'd pour all the love that just wasn't enough into a whirlwind of intertwined limbs and shambled sheets. Tonight they'd touch each other like the sun would never rise.

Byakuya smiled sadly at Kaine. "That sounds lovely."


	6. Chapter 6

Hello my beauties. One more chapter down and about two more to go! Enjoy. I accept gratitude in the form of comments.

Good Vibes

~Ashes.

 **xXx**

In the dim confines of an office located on the top floor of Tokyo's leading environmental law firm, Byakuya sat stationary in a swivel chair. His legs were folded like perfectly symmetrical origami as he spun a glass of bourbon in lazy thoughtfulness. He looked out of a gallery of windows and upon the cityscape. At night, Tokyo was nothing more than twinkling lights, little boxes hanging like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Each light represented a person, yet to the typical spectator, they were just garnishes to the darkness.

Something about that made Byakuya feel terribly lonely. Behind every light was an individual, each with their own consequential existences to maintain, yet they were reduced to their allotted squares, just a mass of tiny, impersonal boxes.

For a moment he pondered on what the lives of these people might be like. Some were probably going through divorces, losing their children or their homes. Some were probably having babies and falling in love. Some were soaring and some were sinking, but they shined all the same.

It felt safe to be viewed in such a detached way, as a closed box. That's why so many feared unfolding their tops and letting others rummage through the nitty gritty of their insides. There was a safety in that loneliness.

A light knock made Byakuya spin himself towards the door of his office. There stood Rukia holding a mug that puffed like a chimney.

"Rukia." He picked up a stack of papers and tapped them on the desk to align their edges. "You're still here."

"And so are you." Her eyes roamed around the office as if looking for something. They fell on Byakuya's face, the flame of a candle projecting shapes on his ivory like shadow puppets performing against a blank wall. "You know, when you offered me a job as your assistant, I was happy, because one, making coffee for snooty uptowners doesn't pay nearly enough to get through college, and two, I wanted to look after you."

Byakuya held a smile with the same desperate debilitation that someone might hold a dying friend. "Really? Those were my exact reasons for offering you the job."

"You wanted me to look after you?"

" _I_ wanted to look after _you_ , which is how it should be."

Rukia shifted against the door slightly. There was a silence followed by a long sigh. "Well great minds do think alike." Her eyes drifted again. "You really shouldn't keep sleeping here, Byakuya."

"It is only for another week. My apartment should be ready soon."

"You could come stay with me, just until it's ready."

Byakuya scoffed. "I've lived in a college dormitory before, Rukia, and I do not plan on doing it again. I am much too old, and students are much too rowdy."

She pushed herself from the door frame and closed some of the distance between them. "You're twenty five," she said with a laugh.

He picked up a pen and allowed his drained eyes to float over a piece of paperwork. They were red stained and dry from exertion, and he was starting to see double print. The smoke from the candle on his desk burned like a wildfire against his corneas, eating up all the life his gray had to ofter. There was deforestation in his eyes, but the scent calmed his nerves nonetheless. "Do not let my physical age fool you. My body may be young, but my mind is quickly heading towards retirement," he said, using his thumb and pointer to apply pressure from his eyelids to the bridge of his nose.

"You're certainly stuck in your ways like an old man," she said, and he heard the clank of porcelain hitting the wood. When he opened his eyes, through their haze, he saw her wearing an almost motherly look of disapproval. For a fleeting moment, he thought it was Hisana's eyes scolding him. With a more tender disposition, she said, "A week at the firm, and you already have a reputation. You work so much and talk so little that people don't even know how to approach you."

"Good."

"Byakuya," she said. Her eye's made voicing the rest of her thought redundant. When he met them with raised brows, she added, "There's nothing wrong with making friends."

"That's not why I'm here."

"I know," she said as she sat down, "but that doesn't mean you still can't."

Byakuya made a noncommittal noise and looked back at his paper work. Rukia reached across the table and grabbed his cup of bourbon. "And this certainly won't help you stay awake." She inclined her head towards the mug. "Drink the coffee."

He took a placating sip, and she nodded in approval. A long silence ensued, so long that Byakuya almost forgot she was there until she asked, "What's wrong, Byakuya?"

"What do you mean? Nothing is wrong."

She rolled her eyes and waved a hand to the side. "You're barely sleeping. You work all the time. Oh, not to mention, you're the most anal person I know, but you still have all these boxes just sitting untouched. I know you better than that."

Byakuya looked towards the corner of his office where several cardboard boxes sat unopened and seemingly abandoned. He had meant to go through them, but there was always a reason not to.

"I have been busy."

Rukia shifted in her chair with fidgety hands, and a sad air swallowed her up in it's despondency. "I talked to Ichigo recently."

His pen wielding hand stopped mid stroke, and he lifted a gaze to prompt her. "He told me some of what happened. He left out a lot of the nasty details, but… I wish you would talk to me."

"Rukai, I-"

"I know what you're going to say, that there's nothing to talk about, but we both know you're just protecting me. Byakuya," she said, arching her body closer to the man, "I'm not some naive child. I've been through a lot myself. Families are there to lean on. You can open up to me. I can handle it."

Byakuya sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. When his eyes met hers, he found himself without words.

"Tell me what happened between you and Ichigo. You left Kaien. You're both living in Tokyo, so where does that leave you two?"

"I did not leave Kaien. He left me. Shouldn't you be heading home?"

"Same difference, and you're deflecting. I won't leave until you talk to me."

"Playing off my brotherly instincts, are we?" He asked, his face almost portraying amused. "You'd make a formidable lawyer one day."

She smirked. "I get it from my brother."

Hesitantly, he sat down his pen and slumped back into the chair's embrace. "If I answer you, will you promise to go home for the evening? You have early classes first thing in the morning."

When Rukia nodded and settled deeper into her chair, Byakuya said, "As I told Kaien, I have no intention of restarting a relationship with Ichigo."

"Not even a friendship?"

"There is no room for just friends between him and I."

She fretted her brow and edged closer. From the excited intent displayed in her body posture, Byakuya knew she wouldn't just accept the easy answer. "But why? I know he really messed things up, but can't you forgive him?"

"That is not the point," Byakuya said as he shook his head in descent. "I have forgiven him."

"Then why?!"

Byakuya's eyes fluttered. They felt heavy. He felt heavy. All of his justification, they weighed on his lungs like tar-black bricks. He ate cinder, exhaled labored breaths, and nothing could penetrate his fortress of charred memories. "As you remember, Ichigo and I were close friends."

"Best friends," she corrected.

Byakuya nodded. "Yes, best friends. Around him, I was guard-less. I trusted so deeply in our bond that I had little means of self preservation. I didn't even find it necessary." He closed his eyes, surrendering to the smokey burden that implored rest. "I was lulled into complacency. Perhaps if I had of been more… I'm not sure, on guard? I wouldn't have lost what was so important to me."

Rukia's eyes shifted, and she chewed on her lip in confusion until realization slowly washed over her in the same way a spark gradually transformed into a blaze. "You blame yourself for him staying away? Byakuya's, that's not fair!"

"But isn't it?" He asked. "I am not taking blame away from him, but I am simply stating that it took two. I could've bit my tongue, withheld my confession instead of selfishly putting that on his shoulders. I could've told him leaving was a mistake. I could've retrieved his address and went to him." He swallowed hard and kneaded at his sweaty palm. At the grocery list of regrets stacking up in front of him, Byakuya shook his head in a self loathing manner. "I could've call more, but because I trusted in what we had so fervently, I was careless. I always believed he would come back… Until he didn't."

Byakuya picked up the mug of coffee and took tentative sips, allowing the brew to drip slowly down his parched throat and smooth the tensed muscle. "When we first became friends, I never imagined I could be so content for so long. I didn't see him coming." He gave a humorless, harrowing chuckle that barely met the ears. "I was lost in a fairytale with that boy, and the higher up you are, the harder you fall. He brings out the worst in me."

"You're wrong!" Rukia exalted with both hands braced against her knees, the language of her body speaking incitements. "He brought out the best in you. Do you really see things so black and white?"

"He made me weak, less self-reliant."

"Yeah, and what's so wrong with being weak to someone's affection? People need people, Byakuya," she shot back. "Who's more courageous, the man who goes into battle without a shield or the man who does?"

Byakuya scoffed at the comparison. "One has a death wish, and one is much more intelligent."

Rukia was all but standing out of her chair by now. "Maybe my comparison wasn't that good, but this is life, not a battlefield! And what about Hisana? You were weak for her. Did she bring out the worst in you too?"

Byakuya's eye grew smaller at the mention of his deceased lover, and he shifted away ever so slightly. "Of course not. Now, I believe I have held up my part of this bargain, and it is time for you to hold up yours."

A defeat settled in Rukia's stomach like concrete blocks, making her sink rapidly back into the chair, but she did not get up to leave. In fact, she picked up the glass of bourbon, dipped her head, and let the alcohol soak into her eyes. Soon she began circling the rim with the pad of her index finger.

Just as Byakuya went to speak, she said, "So you've forgiven Ichigo, but not yourself?"

The lines on Byakuya's forehead tightened like laces. "I have forgiven myself, but I will not forget."

"I don't think that's true," Rukia said, shaking her head. "If you really forgave yourself, you'd have found some peace. You wouldn't be so hard on yourself. You'd show yourself compassion. No." She looked up to her brother with dampened eyes. "Your mistakes, you hate them. You fear them. You didn't learn from them at all."

"Fear?!" He echoed, his whole stance taunting terribly. "I am many things, Rukia, but a coward is not one of them."

"You're letting those mistakes dictate you. You live in the past. That sounds like fear to me. Brother, I mean you no disrespect, but when life got hard, which it inevitably does for everyone, you let it harden your spirit. That's not strength. That's _defeat_."

There were mini earthquakes fisted in Byakuya's hands and volcanos in his eyes. Why did everything feel so heavy? Why did he always feel like a landscape teetering the line of lethality?

"Rukia, I don't have to sit here and listen to insult-"

"You may think I wouldn't understand," she said, her voice towering over his before it crumbled into a whisper, "but I do, better than you know."She dipped her head once more and throttled the glass. Then she lifted it to her lips and drank half of the liquid in one valiant gulp. She inclined her head, and the tears in her eyes made for softer weather. She hadn't cried since Hisana's funeral, and Byakuya found no words in the wake of her agony. Both her eyes and chin were taken by trimmers, and something about the whole disposition screamed desperately for sympathy.

She shook her head as a way of composure and sipped at the drink once more. "The night of Hisana's death, I was home. Th-there was a party." With her words now given center stage, Rukia's confidence was lagging, and eye contact was nearly impossible. "I was only in eighth grade, but a few girls wanted to go to this high school party. Of course, Hisana said it was a bad idea. I didn't understand. I was usually a loner, but these girls seemed genuinely nice. For the first time, people were kind to me. It felt good."

She rotated between sniffling and sipping, but never did she look towards Byakuya. "Hisana fell asleep. Our foster mother was at work. I got ready, flat ironed my hair, and then I left. A-at...t-the party, I realized I had left it on. I figured... it be okay, but when I went back," her voice broke into a sob, and she forced herself to look towards Byakuya, "but when I went back, the whole house was up in flames!"

Byakuya's face was a chasm of disbelief. He didn't know what to say, but with the way Rukia's rounded eyes swirled like two whirlpools pulling him into her, making him exist in her pain, he felt nothing but a sad compassion.

"I ran up to the firefighters and told them everything. I said it was all my fault. They said a fire of that magnitude being caused by a flat iron was extremely unlikely, but the cause was inconclusive. They said, even if it was caused by the flat iron, I couldn't blame myself. It was a small mistake, they said. It could've happened to anyone, but…but..."

"But you never saw it that way," Byakuya surmised.

Rukia slowly nodded her head before finishing the last of her drink. She cradled the empty glass in her hands for no apparent reason, perhaps just to busy her anxious fingers. "I grew distant from everyone. You all thought it was because of Hisana's death, and partially, it was, but I was so scared. One human mistake, and it could've caused my sister's death! I feared people would find out. I feared making a mistake and hurting someone again. For so long, I punished myself for what happened to Hisana."

"It wasn't your fault, Rukia," Byakuya all but whispered.

Rukia looked up, and her gaze stilled like the dwindling chaos after a calamity. As the flame of the candle reflected against her face, there was a somber, silent destruction in her eyes. "That's the thing, Byakuya, it really could've been my fault, but that was my truth to accept, my mistake to learn from." Placing the glass on his desk, she wiped the sweat of her grip against her trousers and slid into the back of the chair. "Now I compulsively check every little thing like that, but It took me a long time to realize being that careful with people wasn't doing me any good. It's not what my sister would've wanted."

A much needed respite followed. It allowed the tense energy to level out and for their minds to process the flood of emotional revelations.

"Thank you for telling me that story," Byakuya finally said.

"I hope you don't hate me."

Byakuya frowned. "I could never hate you, no matter what may or may not have happened to cause that fire."

Rukia let lose a shaky breath of relief and wore a tired smile. "I won't bother you about the Ichigo topic anymore. I just figured, maybe you could get something from my cautionary tail. It's your decision to make, and I love you no matter what."

Byakuya nodded. "Let me call you a cab," he said as he picked up his phone. "I want to make sure you arrive at your dormitory safely."

At the words Rukia comprehended as 'I love you too,' she smiled gratefully.

 **xXx**

" _Hey, Byakuya, I was think-"_

' _ **Buzz'**_

 _Ichigo looked down to the phone vibrating in Byakuya's pocket. He chewed on his lip in frustration._

' _ **Buzz'**_

" _Aren't you going to get that?"_

 _Ichigo's glare swayed between Byakuya and the phone. After a moment of consideration, he took it out of the pocket and slung it onto his bed. Byakuya frowned and blinked in confusion._

" _So you're not?"_

" _Whatever happens when I pick up that phone, it'll always be there. It'll still be there in five minutes… for the rest of my life." He cupped Byakuya's cheeks like they were safety devices keeping him secure to this rollercoaster of a world. "But this won't be," he said right before his lips crashed into Byakuya's, creating a whirlwind of kinetic energy and beautiful friction._

 _Their arms laced like desperate hand holding, and their feet stumbled mindlessly, like in the way one got lost in a dance where the moves didn't matter nearly as much as how they made you feel. Ichigo had them on the bed of his dormitory, Byakuya vibrant beneath him. All breath and sound created a harmony of heavy, ravenousnesst6 heaves. Finally, Ichigo slowed his nomadic hands, tracing the outlines of Byakuya's face. His fingers slowly trickled down the bridge of Byakuya's nose, and then paid reverence to the pious peeks of pink lips. He relished in the skin, so soft and tangible Ichigo could feel the realness against his fingertips._

 _Byakuya smiled softly. The way an angel might smile at you. He took Ichigo's hands, and as if bestowing a blessing, he kissed each individual fingertip._

" _You're…so damn beautiful," Ichigo said in breathless wonder._

" _Ichigo…" Byakuya intertwined their fingers. "This isn't real."_

 _Ichigo squeezed his eyes shut, but only for a moment. He dreaded opening them to find Byakuya gone. "Can't we pretend like it is?"_

 _Byakuya frowned and sighed sadly. "No."_

' _ **Buzz'**_

 _Tears trickled down Ichigo's face, baptizing Byakuya in his longing._

' _ **Buzz'**_

" _That's reality calling, Anata. You have to pick it up."_

 **xXx**

Ichigo woke with a shock, his heart beating so purposefully that he could feel it throbbing against his throat. His hands grasped for the fabric of a duvet, and the dark stung to sight. It felt like waking up in a nightmare where the monster was eternal darkness. Lonely, draped in a cloak of boiling blood, yet still somehow always freezing, and very, very aware of it all, these were his terrors come to fruition.

Beside him was a body, warm and splayed. His skin was ivory and his hair raven like the angel in his dreams, but this man was no angel, not Ichigo's at least. His figure was blanketed by soft shadows, barely giving visage to his face. Even here, sharing his heat, the stranger felt more like an illusion than not. He was nearly imperceivable, vague and transitory like the shadows that covered him. Ichigo had already forgotten his name if he ever knew it at all.

He once heard someone say that you never get over 'The One.' The first one, the one that got away, the one that changed everything, whatever 'One' they were in your life, they'll haunt you. They'll become a habituated horror, like your mind was a haunted house that lost most of its sting. Over time they'll become stagnant. You might even think they're gone for good, but they're always there, lingering, waiting for someone to mention their name or for you to find a pair of their old socks. Then, like the first time, it'll hit you all over again. You'll forget the next day, if you're lucky, but they'll still be there, waiting, trespassing. The worst part is, you don't really want to forget, even if forgetting means being able to move on.

Maybe it was Ichigo's fault for never learning how to let go. As a consequence, the dead weight that was his and Byakuya's broken bond kept him tether and stagnant. He did not move forward. He did not regress. This was purgatory, a wonderfully withered garden in which Ichigo kept foolishly tending to the rotten roots.

As dead as their relationship was, the idea that him and Byakuya would one day reunite was alive and well inside of him, lighting fires, reopening wounds, refusing to let him move on. It had to be. It was magnetism. It was physics. As sure as he was that the rain would join with the earth, he had to hold true to the hope that him and Byakuya would always end up face to face.

What he didn't want to admit was how the shrillness of winter had stolen their gardens liveliness. It was over. Gone. All that work, and it meant nothing. Maybe if he could stop watering dead flowers, he could grow some new ones, but he was enslaved by the idea that none could be as beautiful as the one's he let die.

Ichigo slid to the edge of the bed and pressed palms into the groves of his eye sockets. The clock read eleven thirty p.m. His shift at the department started at one a.m. The routine was a simple one: shower, ingest something so he would make it through the day, brush his teeth, think about calling Byakuya, reconsider. These were his days.

 **xXx**

"Yo, Ichigo!" Renji said, waving a styrofoam cup in the air. "Want a cup? I just brewed a fresh pot."

Ichigo dragged his feet towards Renji, yawning as he did so. "God yes."

Renji had this way about him where everything he did was over the top. So when he chuckled and shouted over his shoulder, "A cup of sugar with a dash of coffee, right?" Ichigo rubbed at his temples methodically.

"Yeah, and how about a sprinkle of pipe the hell down," Ichigo said as he walked up beside a humming Renji.

"Geez, and I thought you'd be happy, considering you got lucky tonight." He handed Ichigo the cup, and his lips curled curiously. "Unless it wasn't too lucky after all."

"Stop prying," Ichigo said, scowling over the rim of his cup. "Beside, you and Grimmjow were the one's who begged me to go out tonight, and on a work night too."

"Excuse the hell out of us for dragging you from your pity party of one." When Ichigo sent him a scathing look, Renji said, "We just worry, it's what good friends do. You work all the time now, and you're a total homebody. We had to get you out before you started talking to the walls."

"Don't worry, I'm fine," Ichigo said before he downed half his coffee and put on a small smile. "Tired, but fine."

Renji grinned lewdly as he plopped down in a seat and kicked his feet up on a nearby bar. "So he wore you out, huh?"

"I already told ya', I'm not talkin' about it."

Renji clucked at his gums and shook his head in disappointment. "Come on! Guy's tell each other these things. You know I'll just bother you until you spill it."

Ichigo rolled his eyes and turned to replenish his cup. "Here's an idea. Instead of sticking your nose in my sex life, get your own." He turned back around towards Renji. "For a straight guy, you sure are really interested in gay sex."

Coffee came sputtering from Renji, and his cheeks burned crimson as he choked on the beverage. Ichigo smirked as he took satisfaction in Renji's apparent humiliation.

Renji stood up and grabbed a napkin. He spit on it and began rubbing out the coffee stain on his shirt."

"Gross! That's what they make water for, Idiot."

"Hey, it's your fault, and anyway, why are you deflecting? You're the only guy I know who doesn't talk about that stuff."

"When it's good, you don't hav'ta talk about it," Ichigo said, a faint smirk pulling at his lips.

"Say's the guy who hasn't got any since the day you saw Byakuya three months ago."

Sometimes Ichigo didn't know what possessed him to tell Renji anything at all. He must've been near the point of alcohol poisoning when he told Renji about his run in with Byakuya, because his friend never missed a chance to prod at his mistakes whenever the occasion called for it. It was alway with good intent, but still mind achingly agitating.

"How do you know how long it's been since I hooked up with someone?"

"Grimmjow told me."

"How does Grimm know!?

Renji shrugged a shoulder. "He just knows things." A few of the other firefighters walked by and asked them if they wanted to play cards until a call came in. Renji said to deal them in for the next round. After they left, he kept stealing weird looks at Ichigo.

"What the hell are you looking at? It's freaking me out." When Renji silently simpered, Ichigo sat his cup down forcefully. "Out with it!"

"Speaking of Grimmjow knowing things, he told me the guy you picked up tonight looked a lot like that Byakuya guy."

"How the hell does he know what Byakuya looks like?!"

"Rukia's got pictures of him on her Facebook. You'd know that if you had one." He sipped lazily at his coffee, tilting his head back and forth. "He's really hot, by the way. Man, you screwed up, Ichigo."

"Thanks, you're a great friend, Renji. Really," he said, scowling his way over to the seat Renji had just preoccupied. "Will you two stay out of my private life? It's weird and none of your business."

"Not as weird as picking up guys who look like your old flame."

"Yeah, well, Byakuya's marrying a guy who's practically my doppelgänger, so I think I've earned the right. Besides," he muttered, "he didn't look that much like Byakuya."

"Yeah, you're right, Byakuya's way hotter," Renji said, and Ichigo retaliated by throwing the now empty styrofoam cup at his head.

"Are you trying to piss me off?!"

"It passes the time," Renji said with a shrug. "Besides, you make it so easy these days. You're always pissy."

Ichigo slumped back in the chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. "I'm not pissy, just sleep deprived. I've been working shifts nearly everyday. Plus I've been giving lessons to the kids more often."

"Then stop working so much."

"I like to keep busy," Ichigo said as he laid a forearm across his head and yawned.

"That's what spending time with your friends is for!"

Ichigo snorted. "Yeah, so I can watch you and Grimmjow's sad attempts to pick up girls at a bar while also trying to funnel alcohol down my throat? No thanks."

"Then go get your fucking boyfriend back!"

At that, Ichigo opened one eye and directed it towards an indignant Renji. Their scowls were matching. "I've tried."

"Oh like hell you did. You tried once, and it wasn't even planned." Renji stood with arms crossed and chin pointed in front of Ichigo, looking down on him dispassionately. "You call that trying? How about a little persistence?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Ichigo asked as he launched himself an inch from Renji's face. "Stalk him?!"

"Something! Fill his office with flowers, write him a cheesy love song on your guitar, stand out in the rain with a fucking stereo over your goddamn head. I don't know, just something." He grabbed Ichigo by the shoulder and shook him as if he was possessed by evil spirits. "Where the hell is that Kurosaki determination? I thought he meant a lot to you!?"

"He does!"

"Then do something about it or move on," Renji said as he turned away, pulled out pack of cigarettes, and popped one in his mouth. "It's that simple, Ichigo."

Ichigo opened his mouth in rebuttable, but nothing ever came. The words sat like smoke on his tongue, making him sink back into the chair. He leaned elbows on his knees and fanned a hand over his face. "He told me to let him go. I'm just trying to do right by him."

"So what? I'd probably tell you to leave me alone too if you ignored me for five years." When Ichigo all but growled from his folded up position, Renji threw a cigarette and lighter at him in quick cesession, making Ichigo fumble for a catch. "What? You look like you need a smoke. Anyway, I'm just saying, after all you put the guy through, can you blame him if it's hard to invest in you? He needs something tangible, some effort. You said he moved to Tokyo, right? Go find him. Be a prince in fire resistant armor and go get your damn boyfriend back."

A blaring siren cut short any further discussion. Renji and Ichigo jumping from their spots, their previous conversation completely forgotten. They fell into the shuffle of preparations as all the firefighters emerged.

"Alright men," the captain said as they climbed onto the truck. "We're heading towards a law firm near the center of town. I'm not sure of the severity, but prepare for a possible large scale evacuation."


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Thank you to all the people who reviewed the last chapter. There are two more after this.

 **xXx**

This was his life.

As he stood planted and paralyzed on a sliver of concrete, looking up towards the firm while clutching the charred mess of blistered skin branding his forearm, Byakuya couldn't escape that fact. His life was up in flames, flames oxidized by his inability to stop loving Ichigo for even a moment.

The flickering of orange reflected against the windows of the firm. His mistakes were melted into stained glass.

All he could see was orange, beautiful, nostalgic, destructive orange engulfing all that surrounded him.

Yes, Byakuya's life was spinning, and all he could see was a painfully addictive orange.

 **xXx**

 _Byakuya's eyes began to shudder as the warmth that surrounded him turned torrid. A soft orange glow welcomed his eyes, making the lawyer stir even more._

" _Ichigo…" he muttered, only to jump from his seat at the angry towers of flames filling his office with their brimstone._

 _How could it have gotten so bad? The flames had actually lulled him, sang him lullabies with their scathing, orange tongues, sending him into a deeper slumber. By the time he awoke, sweltering and sleep riddled, it was too late. Half of his office was ate up. He had been comforted into this destruction._

 _Byakuya moved too quickly to discern the cause of his situation. It must've been the candle mixed with his own carelessness, but that didn't matter now._

 _As he rushed out his office door and over to a fire extinguisher, he wondered why the sprinklers hadn't been activated. Again, more unless thoughts._

 _He pointed the hose toward the flames, but as he went to pull it, the nozzle broke. Byakuya dropped the useless hunk of metal and cursed in frustration before heading towards the door in an attempt to evacuate._

 _As he made his way through the inferno, he stopped and stared at the stack of helpless boxes moments away from become more food for the fire, only ashes left behind like bones of their contents. He looked between the door and the boxes several times. There was just one thing in one box he couldn't replace. Something he didn't realize he'd risk everything for until his feet hurried towards the stack of unmarked cardboard._

 _He frantically searched for his keys. Once found, his fumbling fingers fought for a grasp on the jangling piece of mettle. He punctured the tape, ripping it in one jagged movement before opening the flaps._

 _Wrong box._

 _He pushed it aside and repeated this process with the next, but by now, the flames were licking at the edges of the cardboard, rapidly working towards consumption. The fire grasped his forearm, marking him with their cruelty like fingerprints left behind by the hands of an abusive lover. He grabbed the mistreated skin and winced in pain, but seeing the flames flickering up the box, he quickly began to search through the fallen contents._

 _Byakuya saw the item just as a flame crept up its border, but he stomped it out before it could be permanently defaced. He picked up the flimsy picture of him and Ichigo at the ice rink and looked at its newly burned corner, sighing happily at the minimum damage before running towards the stair well._

 **xXx**

Byakuya looked down at the crumpled, fragmented picture that he'd risked his own safety for. Even after all of his arrogant declarations, he was still hurting himself for a bond that had died long ago.

"Byakuya!"

The lawyer looked up to see Ichigo running towards him, and he shoved the picture in his pocket.

Ichigo skidded to a halt in front of Byakuya and began examining him up and down, clasping his ash smudged cheek. "Byakuya, are you okay?"

The lawyer couldn't speak. He just blinked, drops of sweat catching in his lashes.

"Byakuya, talk to me! Look at you arm! That looks really bad, 'Kuyakik."

"Kurosaki!" barked a strapping, gray haired man. "Get your ass moving, unless you've suddenly became a medic!

"Yeah, I'm coming," Ichigo yelled back before turning a more tender eye back onto Byakuya. "Get that checked out. I'll be out soon, okay? This doesn't look too bad."

All Byakuya could manage was a nod, and after one more worried look, Ichigo ran into the building.

 **xXx**

Ichigo exited the extinguished building. He pulled off his head gear and took a big breath while searching for Byakuya. Only, the attention of a man snapping pictures caught his attention first.

"What the hell? Get the hell out of here," Ichigo shouted as he bulldozed over to the young man.

The photographer lowered his camera to chest level, revealing a black stripe tattooed on his cheek.

"What are you? One of those ambulance chasers?"

The man's serious glare became lighter as he smirked at the firefighter, making Ichigo burrow his fingers into his helmet. "Yeah, actually, I am, but this isn't for that. No one even died. That makes for poor journalism. This is for my personal collection."

Ichigo's face closed in on itself like a collapsing building, and he only got more pissed when the man picked up his camera and snapped a picture.

"Wow, what a perfect face. Ya kn- Hey, stop!" He yelled as Ichigo yanked away his camera and smashed it on the sidewalk. "Dude-"

"Get out of here before I do the same thing to your face."

The man tutted, bent down, and plucked a roll of film from the remnants of plastic. He stood to see Ichigo walking away. "Thanks! I needed a new camera anyway."

Ichigo rolled his eyes and kept walking until he reached the ambulance where Byakuya sat receiving the treatment of an E.M.T. As the emergency responder left, Byakuya said, "I see somethings never change."

"Give me some credit, I didn't punch him."

A tiny smile pulsed like a heartbeat on Byakuya's face, but quickly vanished into something more regrettable. He looked down to his bandaged arm and ran eyes over it like a doctor might do. When Ichigo reached out and caressed the injury with the pad of his thumb, Byakuya fliched.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh, this is nothing."

Byakuya slid his arm away with careful trepidation, and Ichigo ached at the way his eyes shifted.

"That's not what meant." His voice lowered to a tender hum. "It must've been scary. I'm glad you're okay."

Byakuya inclined his head, and their eyes touched like a hand to the stove. It burned. They had to rip away. "As am I," Byakuya managed.

Ichigo fiddled with his helmet and cleared his throat. "Where are you staying? Someone can call you a cab."

"I was staying here until my apartment was ready.I'll find a hotel."

"Do you need someone to call Kiane?"

"No!" Byakuya urged, "I mean, no. He is in Karakura."

Ichigo scrunched his brow. "Uh, okay. Well, listen, you're not going to find hotel this late. You can stay with me for the night."

Byakuya dipped his head and closes his eyes. When he opened them, he said, "You're at work."

"The captains always harping at me to take a night off. He won't mind letting me cut out if I explain the situation."

"Ichigo I-"

"Look, I know what you're going to say, but it's just a bed, Byakuya, not a date. Just...let me help you this once." Byakuya pointed his chin in an act of defiance, a gesture Ichigo recalled very well. "Unless, of course, you want me to call Rukia."

Byakuya's eyes sharpened momentarily before he said, "You are very crafty, Ichigo."

"Heh, I learned from the best."

They were both silent for a moment. Ichigo hated it, all the heavy silences between them. It was a still air that replaced laughter and moments of silent certainty. It stretched out between them like miles. There were continents between them.

Byakuya's typically refined appearance was bedraggled. There were canon size wrinkles in his dress shirt and his hair flapped around his face like raven wings. No one else made elegantly disheveled look this effortlessly.

Ichigo, full of thoughtless longing, reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind Byakuya's ear, but the fear that flashed across his face made him draw back. It broke his heart, the way Byakuya associated his touches with pain.

He he had beaten Byakuya, just in all the places that didn't reach the eyes.

"I'll… be right back," he muttered. "Gotta go talk to the captain."

 **xXx**

More silence. That was all that existed between them as they sat on opposite ends of a taxi cab. And it did exist. It was a tangible being that suffocated them with its insistent presence. It was like a conversation you couldn't get out of, and the longer it ensued, the harder it was to walk away from.

There was plenty Ichigo could say, an endless list of meaningless topics they could engage in, but this emptiness was an opponent of great force, and trying to push it out with mere pleasantries would leave them both embarrassed at such a pitiful attempt. So Ichigo spared them both.

Instead he looked out the window, but it was all scenery that his head wouldn't keep, just background to fill the void.

The taxi pulled up to Ichigo's building and the two exited onto the sidewalk dragging that dirty air with them all the way up the stairs. They walked down the narrow, claustrophobic hallway, but as they got closer to his apartment, they saw Ichigo's nameless fling walking out the door and closing it behind him.

He stood facing the chipped wood with a jacket slung over his arm. He put it on and ran palms over the leather fabric before gathering up his maine of raven hair and tying it up in a high ponytail, revealing the ivory of his neck.

Ichigo was baffled by his own stupidity, standing there with red cheeks and pursed lips. He'd forgot that he let this guy sleep it off when he went to work -the alcohol, not the sex - since there was only four hours in between them arriving at his apartment and him needing to leave for the station. The man had been much drunker than he, and it wasn't like Ichigo had anything worth stealing anyway.

He turned to finally notice the pair, and his face constricted and slacked in a range of emotions. His crystal blue eyes were the antithesis of Byakuya's gray, and Ichigo was glad for it, because he really did resemble a much younger version of his childhood friend.

"I didn't realize you allowed your music students to sleep here. How very generous of you."

Ichigo didn't have to look at Byakuya to tell his lips were curling in amusement. He was predictably snide like that. "Ignore him," Ichigo said to the young man who now stood with fingers intertwined and head slightly dipped.

He looked up to Ichigo with a tiny, uncertain smile. "Thank you again for letting me stay. I, um, left my number on the night stand." Ichigo said nothing, just nodded as he moved past them, and though Byakuya stared at his younger doppelganger persistently, he didn't dare look his way. As he slid past Ichigo, he gave him a quick peck on the cheek and whispered, "Call me."

Ichigo, too, didn't look at Byakuya. He just pulled the keys from his pocket and put them in the lock.

"How rude. He didn't even greet me. Was it something I said?"

Ichigo scoffed as he pushed open the door. "Innocence doesn't look good on you, Byakuya."

That was a lie. Everything looked good on Byakuya.

"It is endearing when their so young and naive that they actually believe you'll call them," Byakuya remarked as they stepped into the tiny yet well kept living room.

"Yeah, I get it," Ichigo said as he threw his keys on a wobbly end table, "he's young." He turned to look at Byakuya, and if he hadn't missed it so much, that smug, barely perceivable smirk would've pissed him off. Instead, it made his blood flow backwards.

The air around them suddenly became more manageable. Ichigo supposed it took one ridiculously awkward situation to counterbalance another.

Byakuya made a slight tisk sound as he walked to a shelf bloated with books and ran a finger over their spines. "It's a bit thoughtless to bring over a man when you have another one in your bed, Ichigo."

"Honestly, I forgot he was here."

Byakuya turned to him with a cocked brow, and fuck if Byakuya didn't look beautiful under the illumination of dimming L.E.D bulbs, his skin projecting red car lights that filtered in through a nearby window. Amongst the shabby, worn down furniture and blank walls, his beauty stood in contrast to its mediocrity, and yet he still somehow looked as if he belonged. Like a flower that sprouted from the cracks in a sidewalk, there was a certain amount of hope he brought to all this blandness.

"Was he that bad?"

Ichigo chuckled lightly and shook his head in a sort've resignation. What he was resigning to, he had no clue. "No, just young. No one's good at that age."

"Well, young or not, it would seem you have a type," Byakuya said, and Ichigo knew he was referencing to their similar attributes.

"Yeah," Ichigo agreed, taking a step closer, "You're my type."

And there it was again. That heavy air.

Byakuya face stiffened and his eyes sought refuge behind their lids. He cleared his throat and asked, "May I use your shower?"

"Yeah, of course. Let me get you something to sleep in." Ichigo turned towards his bedroom, but stopped before reaching the hall. "Oh, and Byakuya, don't get weird on me just because I said bluntly what you were implying. It's no secret that I want you."

Ichigo let a feeling of satisfaction carry him to his room, because dammit, he wasn't that blush ready kid anymore. He was a man now, and there were some things he wouldn't fuck around with. Byakuya had to know that he had changed, but in most ways, it was for the better.

He returned holding a folded up pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt along with a towel and washcloth. Then he ushered Byakuya to the bathroom and opened up the door. "Here it is. The water pressures shit, and I don't use any of that fancy conditioner you like, but have at it."

Byakuya walked past him to stand in the threshold. They both stood motionless for a bit before Byakuya looked down at the stack in Ichigo's hands.

"Oh," Ichigo said, handing them over. Only, before he let go, he said, "I don't do that often, just so you know." Byakuya gave him a questioning glare that made Ichigo shift in his spot. "Ya know, hook up with random guys." Ichigo didn't know why he told Byakuya that. It seemed important, somehow. Maybe he just cared too much about what Byakuya thought of him. It didn't really matter, because now Byakuya was blinking at him with that infuriatingly blank face.

Byakuya took the stack and held it against him. "Neither do I," he said, shrugging a shoulder.

As Byakuya departed deeper into the bathroom, Ichigo scoffed. "I'd hope not, seeing as you're engaged."

Byakuya turned to face him, and the most fleeting of tugs eroded the seriousness of his lips. "Oh, is that what you think?" he asked. "I suppose no one told you."

Before his confusion could register on his face, the door was being shut in it. He finally swallowed down his shock and knocked on the door. "What the hell does that mean? You two broke up? When?"

There was no answer, and Ichigo could almost feel the amused satisfaction that was definitely radiating from Byakuya. He leaned his forehead against the wood and let loose a tiny groan.

He pushed himself from the doorway with nothing but the density of his forehead. To keep his mind off of the very naked and (apparently) very single love of his life showering all of twenty feet away, he put on kettle of hot water and changed the sheets he'd just romped in several hours ago. He picked up the paper on his night stand and looked down at the scribbled name and number of his fling before throwing it away.

When Byakuya was done with the bathroom, Ichigo decided to take a shower himself. He'd taken one several hour ago and had only done one run, but that was more than enough to have the odious mixture of smoke and sweat clinging to him.

As Ichigo showered, thoughts about Byakuya created a web of dead ends until he was tangled in them. Byakuya's words seemed almost like an invitation, but Ichigo knew it was dangerous to treat them like one. However, he also knew a part of Byakuya wanted them to be together. That was why he demanded that distance, needed it, if only for his own resolve, and maybe that's also why some part of Byakuya wanted Ichigo to know about the vacancy in his love life.

All Ichigo knew was this; Byakuya was prideful, stubborn, and hurt, a ghastly triade that made up an unmovable stonewall. Yes, he was all these things, but he was also the man who only smoked cigarettes after funerals. He was a man who told jokes with a no nonsense expression and who regularly quoted Yasunari Kawabata with casual indifference. He was a man who could eat a habanero pepper whole, who could mingle with saints and still out drink a sailor, and who once told Ichigo that he thought love was an act of both self preservation and self degradation. Ichigo knew all of the things Byakuya was and was not, and he loved them holistically. What he didn't know was if that would be enough.

But he was here, in Ichigo's apartment, wearing Ichigo's clothes, teasing Ichigo as if they were ten years younger. Apart of him had to want this, the complicated closeness, the awkwardly forced conversations, and the potential that lived beneath all of that bull shit.

So Ichigo dried off and got dressed, and with that little bit of hope, he made a promise to himself that he would quite ruining moments and wasting opportunities.

He walked out into the living room and halted at the sight of a freshly washed Byakuya sitting on a frumpy couch, knees tucked up to his chest with bare toes dangling off the cushion. Ichigo felt as if he'd entered into a waking dream when he realized that he'd half expected Byakuya to be gone by the time he returned. He had never been so happy to be wrong.

The way he sat in Ichigo's faded, hole riddled college t-shirt, reading a book he helped himself to while carelessly situated made Ichigo smile. Despite everything, here Byakuya was, making himself at home.

He approached the couch and noted two mugs sitting on the coffee table. Then he sat beside Byakuya, chancing a few inches closer than he allowed in the taxi. Byakuya didn't move, just shifted slightly. He picked up his mug and took a sip. Byakuya remembered the way that he liked it.

Its funny what things we hold onto.

There was a silence that Ichigo knew he couldn't let sit. It would bury them and there'd be no way out if he didn't speak now.

"Whatcha reading?"

"Virginia Woolf," Byakuya said, eyes rolling over the book perched against his knees as he spoke. "I never took you as a fan of classical literature, especially English classical literature."

Ichigo sat forward and nabbed a pack of unopened cigarettes off the table. "This book store down the road had a box of books they were giving away," he explained as he unraveled the cellophane. "I remembered you use to read her to me all the time, so I picked it up." He popped the filter in his mouth and lit the tip before noticing the way Byakuya looked at him curiously.

He smirked. "What, you didn't think I was paying attention? Give me a little credit."

"Your snoring was misleading."

Ichigo chuckled as he placed an ashtray on the arm of the couch and balanced the mug against his thigh. He laid his head lazily against the couch so that he was looking at the ceiling, and one of his arms was perched on top of a cushion so he could hold the cigarette in place. "Only a weirdo like you could stay awake while reading the Art of War." He scoffed. "Only a weirdo like you would _read_ the Art of War for fun." He exhaled smoke and tilted his head towards Byakuya. His eyes went soft. "There was some stuff I liked though."

Like always, Byakuya allowed their eyes to connect only long enough for Ichigo to want more. Byakuya picked up his mug and took several back to back sips before sitting it down.

"You have this one part underlined: I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in."

Ichigo shrugged a shoulder. "There was something I liked about it."

"It's resonating," Byakuya said, his slender fingers splayed out across the pages as if he could feel the meaning behind those words more potently if he only touched them. "She was a lesbian at a time when homosexuality was taboo, if not completely illegal. I can imagine how ostracized she must've felt."

"Because you felt it too, right? People still treat it like some perverted fetish here, and I know how your dad was."

"It might sound horrible, but a part of me was glad he died before the truth came out. I was always a coward in regards to him."

"Bull shit."

Byakuya's eyes popped in such a beautifully unbecoming manner, and Ichigo wanted so badly to rummage through every expression he tried to hide. "It was hard, but when it really mattered, you always stood up for yourself. You're stronger than you give yourself credit for, Byakuya."

"It was easier when..." He paused, reconsidering his words. "...When I was younger."

Byakuya's eyes slid across the pages, but Ichigo was certain he wasn't reading anymore. That made him realize how wrong his earlier assessment was. Everything about Byakuya, from his body language to his mannerisms, hinted at a defensiveness. His body was folded inward with his chest covered, and though he usually savored his tea idly, he was now taking compulsive sips, looking into static pages for protection. He was full of nervous energy, not at all making himself at home, and Ichigo was mad that it took him so long to figure that out.

There was so much he wanted to say, but he knew better than to put too much pressure on one moment, on Byakuya. This was the kind've thing you built up to.

"How long did you know you were into guys?" He couldn't help but to think this was the perfect question. It treaded on neutral territory and yet was somehow meaningful. It was a question Ichigo would've asked Byakuya back when they told each other personal things just because it felt right, just because they sincerely wanted to know.

"A long time. Perhaps even before I met you."

"Why did you never tell me? What about Hisana?"

Byakuya closed the book and sat it down on the edge of the couch.

"I loved Hisana, but our relationship was…" He cleared his throat. "Rarely physical. And as for why I never told you, well, I didn't know how you would've taken it, knowing that I would've rather seen you naked than my own girlfriend."

Ichigo blushed from chest to cheeks while Byakuya sipped his tea as if he had made some passing comment about the color of the drapes. He looked away, but when he heard the sound of porcelain hitting wood and felt smooth fingers brush against his lips to pluck the cigarette away, his gaze returned.

It was odd seeing Byakuya smoke outside of the umbrella of death. Especially because he performed the act just like he would after a funeral, always making tobacco look like both a fashion statement and a serious event. His smoking hand curved at the wrist and the cigarette dripped from the hold of two elegantly poised fingers, all while tragedy flared around him. Ichigo wondered what exactly Byakuya was mourning.

He brought the filter to his lips and said, "You have a horrible taste in tobacco, Ichigo."

Ichigo looked at him, still blushing like a bumbling greenhorn, still scowling in the way he would when he was fifteen. "No one forced you to smoke it! Their cheap, and that's good enough for me."

"There's another thing that hasn't changed. Making you feel flustered is still child's play."

"Yeah," Ichigo muttered, "I guess building aren't the only things you're good a lighting up."

Ichigo rolled his head to give Byakuya a shit-eating grin, and they held each other's expressions for longer than they had allowed with all the others. That was until Byakuya let out something low and deep that resembled a chuckle.

It was the type of laugh you give when you can't help but finding humor in your own screwed up life, somewhat bitter yet amused all the same. He inhaled the cigarette again, this time slower, dragging it out, and his glazed over eyes stayed straight ahead in a way that said he was too busy thinking to really see anything.

"I suppose I do have a knack for setting fire to my most important things."

Ichigo pushed past his apprehensiveness, and with the hand slung across the top of the couch, he tentatively rubbed the patch of skin where Byakuya's cheek met his hair. Byakuya turned to look at him, his eyes dressed in multiple emotions, but when he didn't pull away, it made Ichigo's hand all the more bold. He tucked a strand behind Byakuya's ear and caressed the lob with steady yet cautious applications. "Everything that happened with your firm, it'll be okay."

"I appreciate the optimism, but you don't know that."

"Yeah, I do. Your firm wasn't keeping up to date with fire codes. They'll be the ones who have to deal with the consequences."

"That's besides the point. I spent years working towards a position like this, only to waste all my efforts with one careless mistake." He sighed and braced against Ichigo's caressing hand. "I messed up."

"Well look who's human like the rest of us."

Byakuya put on a smirk that matched Ichigo's, huffed in amusement, and handed him back the cigarette.

"Don't be melodramatic, 'Kuyakik. It's not like you'll never work again. This wasn't a career ruiner."

"True, but I most certainly won't be working at this firm any longer."

"So start your own. That's what you always wanted."

"You make it sound so easy."

Ichigo touched Byakuya more deliberately, looked at him with more meaning. "Yeah, and who wants easy? You never did."

Byakuya's body recoiled, and his hips pivoted slightly so that he was turnt more towards Ichigo. Ichigo followed his lead, arching himself at an angle until their knees bumped against each others.

"As I recall, neither did you."

"The best things are worth a good fight."

They looked at eachother with melting stares, sentiments reflecting in the light that caught in their eyes. Ichigo wanted to hold this forever, get lost in it's simple perfection, and he knew if he said nothing, the moment would drift away from him all together.

"I've missed this," Ichigo admitted, "Us talking like this. It almost feels like we're back in college again."

"This might be helping with that," Byakuya said, plucking at the fabric of his t-shirt

"Heh, no way. You would've never worn a college t-shirt back then. You wouldn't even walk to the mailbox unless you looked like a damn runway model."

"I guess I was a little finicky."

"A little?"

There was this incredible pressure that filled them with it's warm haze, prompting them to draw closer.

"You were no better," Byakuya reminded him. "School pride wasn't _cool_. I remember you throwing a fit when your dad forced you to wear this in front of the university so he could take pictures of you. Although, with the state that it is in, I can see that you got over that."

"A shirts a shirt when you were as poor as I was." Ichigo frowned and he momentarily ceased his gentle touches. "It was… pretty tough when I first moved out here."

Byakuya's face hardened, but it did so with earnesty. It was the type of expression a parent might give when reprimanding you out of care.

"You could've asked your family for help...You could've asked me."

"I didn't want them to worry," he explained lamely. "Or you."

"Of course we worried," Byakuya said in a harsh, hushed tone. "When you love someone, watching them bury themselves in isolation is unbearable… You must've known this."

"I did. I mean, I do," Ichigo whispered as he gently turned Byakuya's face towards him. "There's no excuse. I wish...god, I wish I could go back."

Ichigo raked his eyes over Byakuya's blushed, almost painfully porous features, and he wanted nothing more than to turn that cracked window into an open door.

"Byakuya," he muttered, "I'm going to kiss you."

And he did, because Ichigo had always been a man of his word.

They didn't kiss in the way one might expect, with the crashing passion of a tidal wave. It was a faint brush, almost accidental, as if he had leaned in a bit too far to tell Byakuya a secret. It was slow, building in both anticipation and heat, but soon these childish, nervous maneuvers became leaps. Of what, he wasn't sure. A leap of faith, a leap to his death, all Ichigo knew for sure was, it was a leap worth taking.

Their lips slowly opened, and little by little, all those smothered aggravated emotions seeped out, seeking alleviation in a way only mouth to mouth contact could give. This was more than a kiss. It was an act of healing.

It was Byakuya who moved away first, managing only a few agonizing inches.

"Woe…" Ichigo said, panting.

Byakuya was red, disheveled, troubled. "Ichigo, we shouldn't…"

"Don't you feel it," Ichigo asked, taking Byakuya's hand and placing it over his heart like pledge. "When we kiss, I-I can feel it everywhere. How is something like that wrong?"

Ichigo could see it in his eyes, that mutual sensation, that breathless euphoria that invaded their minds like a madness. He could see the pining, the desperation. He could see the confusion.

"It was...it was quite the kiss, but…"

As he began to pull away, Ichigo fisted Byakuya's shirt "Don't run," he pleaded. "Just… please. We can slow down, be friends. I just..." His words failed, so he looked up to Byakuya, hopping his searching eyes could convey what his mouth couldn't.

Byakuya swallowed, his glare wavering, smaller.

"Do you actually believe we could truly just be friends?"

"Don't you get it? You're it for me. What's a few years of friendship when we have a lifetime... Byakuya, I will make you my husband one day!"

Ichigo didn't mean to. He didn't even think it, but there it was, real and immutable in between them, and Ichigo realized he had never meant anything more in his life. There was no future without Byakuya, at least not one Ichigo could see.

But by the way Byakuya lurched from the couch and hovered somewhere between the coffee table and the living room wall with a smoldering expression, Ichigo could see Byakuya didn't feel the same. Or at least, he didn't want to.

"How- wha- How." Byakuya took a composing breath and glared Ichigo down as if he was death itself. He would not be overcame. "How could you say something so ridiculous? It's been five years, Ichigo. Five! You know nothing about me."

Ichigo stood, treating Byakuya as if he was standing on a window sill threatening to jump. He didn't chance moving closer.

"I do know you, Byakuya. Parts of you anyway, and that's enough for me."

"Well it's not for me."

"And why not? What do you think marriage is anyway? When you marry someone, you're not just getting married to one person."

"... I… What?"

"My dad once said what he loved the most about marriage is watching my mom become different people over the years. He watched her become a mother… a business owner… a teacher, each change bringing out different parts of her. He knew that would happen when they got married, but it was okay, because the woman he fell in love with was still there, just added upon."

Ichigo walked slowly towards Byakuya, holding his hand out like someone holds out an olive branch. "Just like us. Byakuya, I watched you become an activist, a lover, a brother. I watched you go into law school with more passion and determination than I've ever seen in a person. Stopping to stand right in front of Byakuya, Ichigo noticed the way he swallowed hard and steadied his eyes in the way one does when overcoming their fears. "I watched you grow, and I want to keep watching you, because god damnit, Byakuya, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life."

Ichigo reached out to touch him, feeling so close to talking him off that ledge, saving all the things Byakuya was seemingly ready to kill, but just before the did, Byakuya pulled away again.

He shook his head, tears appearing like ghost appeared in a cursed house, attached to their haunt, preserved by the pain of their past. They couldn't be seen by everyone, but they were always there, living behind the walls.

"Do you- Do you even know…" Byakuya paused and his chest rattled like the bars of prison. Something was trying to escape him. "I am so angry at you, Kurosaki Ichigo."

"I know…"

"No, you could not even begin to know. Do not insult me."

"Then explain it to me!"

"How do you explain purgatory?!" Byakuya shouted. "When you left, you took parts of me with you. At least when Hisana died, I could move on, but you left me there, waiting, wondering if you'd ever return! Just lingering." Byakuya lunged forward in an uncharacteristic act of hostility, fisting Ichigo's shirt. " _I am still there_ , and have been for so long that I am unsure if I know any other way to be. And now you have the audacity to come back and open a door as if I could simply trust you enough to walk through it."

Byakuya looked at him with wild eyes, and Ichigo leaked from the truth of it all. He had did this.

"Fuck you, Ichigo," Byakuya spat before pulling him into a blistering kiss.

Ichigo pushed him up against the wall, implored by the damning sensation of mutual neediness. They nipped and sucked, grasped and claimed, moving by pure instinct.

He used one hand to bare against the plaster and the other to let Byakuya know he wasn't letting him go. They were in this now, licking and kissing up each other's pain as it spilled from their mouths. This wasn't something that could be put back.

Byakuya squeezed Ichigo's shoulders, and they inched back, looking at each other as if searching beyond this thick haze of festered passion. There was no sense to be found. Whatever he'd find on the other side of this moment, Ichigo would have no regrets.

"It's not just you I'm angry at, but myself too," Byakuya whispered, speaking as if telling a secret not to him but to the moment. "I'm angry that I didn't try harder to find my way back to you, but I'm even angrier that I can not leave this be."

"Bya-"

Byakuya caught those words in his mouth. He didn't want Ichigo's excuses or his apologizes. He didn't want this to get better or worst. He just wanted to get lost in the contact, drown in the bareness of all their unresolved emotions. As they kissed, tasting everything and nothing, savoring the desire, the pain, and the salt of it all, they existed somewhere between the love they could never let go of and the hurt that could never let go of them.

It felt as if they were always destined to be here, fighting it out not with punches and kicks, but with lips and bites, just as violent in its own way, because it couldn't be anyone else. Only they could give each other these bruises, and only they could take them away.

Ichigo's leg rocked against Byakuya's crotch, rubbing moans from him as he pressed kisses up his neck.

"Byakuya, I-"

"Ichigo, no talking. Just… make love to me."

Ichigo placed his hands on the insides of Byakuya's thighs and lifted him up. Byakuya wrapped his legs around Ichigo's waist, allowing himself to be carried and kissed all the way to the bedroom.

It wasn't a choice to Ichigo, but an order he couldn't think to deny, didn't want to deny. Ichigo was a willing servant to this love. He'd let it take him anywhere, even if that place was just another level of hell.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Okay guys, a couple of things. First off, thanks for the reviews. It means a lot. Secondly, I know I said that there would be two more chapters including this one, but If I had of kept with my original plan, then not only would this chapter had been twice the size it is now, but you guys would of had to wait much longer for this chapter and thats no good. :) So there will be two more chapters after this one. I mean it this time.

Lastly, you may be saying, 'Hey, Ashes, did you give us a whole chapter of porn?' And my response to that is an unabashed 'Yes I did.' Porn with plot though.

With that, I hope you enjoy. :)

 **xXx**

"You're so beautiful when you're like this. It makes me want keep my fingers in you all night."

Ichigo watched in rapt longing as he moved his fingers in and out of Byakuya. He was on his haunches spreading Byakuya's legs as to absorb every part of him, salivating at the way his lover gripped the sheets and arched into his penetrations.

Slowly, patiently, Ichigo rotated his curved fingers inside of Byakuya's puckered, blushed, hole, loving that slippery pliant tightness and the lustful symphony of lubed squelches he pulled from his wrecked and imploring lover.

Byakuya tugged at his hair, as if using the pain to keep attached to his own skin. He was glistening, letting out choppy groveling breaths as his body twisted for more contact. Ichigo could feel each movement shoot through his jutting fingers and ripple up his arm.

"Ichigo, please, I am burning up."

This desire, it was crushing, working at his muscles and tendons. It started with a prickeling heat in his mouth, making his jaw feel heavy. It sank deep into him, crept down his neck and sat insistently at the base of his spine. After an hour of coaxing out Byakuya's pleasure with his fingers, he couldn't hold back like this for much longer.

Ichigo lifted one of Byakuya's legs to brace against his shoulder. He pressed wet kisses onto the trembling thigh. "Breathe," he whispered into the leg, slowing his fingers and caressing the spongy, aroused flesh.

Byakuya closed his eyes, managing a wispy inhale and exhale. His chest expanded, that glowing paleness rising and falling like the moon, lighting up Ichigo's dark world.

Ichigo ingested Byakuya with a vain exploration. He watched his body's every retaliation with an obsessive scrutiny. He watched how the hollow between Byakuya's collarbones depressed whenever he swallowed hard. He licked his lips at the way droplets of sweat would trickle from his chest and pooled in all the pits of his body. He hovered from above, studied his every quirk and reflex, wanting never to forget, but he knew that was impossible. Making love to Byakuya was like trying to count craters on the moon from so far away. He could do it every night and still not see all the indents that made him unique.

"There you go. Just relax. Let me take care of you."

When he felt Byakuya's body settle into an anticipatory calm, he lathered on more lube, prudently pushed in a fourth finger, and shifted them to new and unseen depths, watching as that wanton hole greedily took him in past the knuckles.

Byakuya let out a desperate, tear scorched scream that Ichigo could feel in his belly.

"Fuck," Ichigo muttered under his breath.

He continued to rub and kiss up Byakuya's thigh, working some of the elasticity out of his hole. He added more lube, gradually pushing for more and more, wanting to take every part of Byakuya.

"You're taking almost my whole hand," Ichigo said with a whispered fascination. "Take more for me. I want to see how deep you go."

Byakuya looked to him with dripping eyes and rose tinted skin. "Ichigo… it is so hot inside. I want you in me."

"I'll give you what you want for as long as you want it," Ichigo assured with a sultry affectionate. "But I'm going to take my time with you. Just lay back and let me get you there."

Byakuya let out a gritty moan and whispered, barely sensible, "Take me where ever you want."

Ichigo responded by flexing his probing hand, sending jolts through his lover. The sight made his member ache and throb. He continued in his steady whirling, finding a coiled sensation inside of Byakuya, one that grew tighter and tighter the more he prodded, urging a pressure that was moments from snapping. All the while he murmured lusty encouragements, telling him how good he was doing, telling him how much better it would feel after being wound up like this, saying that he looked otherworldly wiggling around on Ichigo's hand.

"You're so close, Byakuya," he muttered, mouth clouded by a mouthful of his lovers thigh, suckling and licking at the creamy skin.

Byakuya's leaking cock, rudy and pulsating, was beating against his pelvic. His whole body was thrumming into a frenzy, a fever working at his brain, whisking him into a welcomed lunacy.

"Ichigo!" Byakuya implored, "bite me. Hard!"

Ichigo bit to bruise, sinking into Byakuya's leg with a savage possession, making something pop within him. With a meticulous twist of his submerged hand, Ichigo said, "Okay, Kuyaiki, you can come now."

Byakuya released thick torrents of ecstasy across his stomach and chest, and Ichigo thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. Body bowed and chest high, he practically levitated off the bed. His neck bent and eyes closed, hands mindlessly slung above his head and mouth blabbering soft insanities that only the divine could understand, Byakuya looked as if he was crying in worship, so filled with the power of something bigger than himself that he was speaking in tongues.

This love, it was bigger than them, vaster. The air crackled in light of it, and Ichigo could feel it against his skin. He wanted to take this slowly, because like anything you worshiped, it needed not just your thoughts but your attention. It needed to grow, to breathe, to expand. It needed you on your knees. After five years, they had finally dug their way back to it. This was a revival.

With the pads of two fingers, Ichigo stroked that agitated bundle of nerves. "Ride it out. Focus on how I feel inside of you," he guided, lulling Byakuya from his climax until there was an easiness to his breathing.

Ichigo removed his fingers one by one, almost as slowly as he put them in, until they came out with a plop, and when he moved to kiss Byakuya, he kissed him like it meant something, kissed him like it meant everything, because it did.

His lips trailed downwards towards Byakuya's neck, and he made sure to give credence to every patch of skin, drenching it in piety.

"Thank you," Byakuya sighed, eyes fluttering.

"For what?" Ichigo asked in the middle of his gradual descent. "I haven't even gotten started with you yet."

Ichigo slurped up the cooling trails of come before licking his lover clean, making Byakuya squirm and wind his fingers in Ichigo's hair. He could see that Byakuya's body was piqued, over stimulated to the point of torture, but that only encouraged him in his erotic trek. He moved over Byakuya with a pitless enthusiasm, sweeping the gamut of lean muscles with his tongue, gorging on his velvety skin and drinking in its tangy flavor, leaving behind paths of saliva and fingerprints.

Settled between Byakuya's legs, he took his cock fully into his mouth, giving none of that slow-building pleasure, but instead, a ceaseless assault that kept the lawyer suspended in this hysterical bliss.

Byakuya's tremoring thighs wrapped around him, squeezing at the ears. He was near convulsions, frothing with breathy screams and whimpers for mercy as his heels dug into the gear of muscles shifting and contracting in Ichigo's back, helping him brace against the intensity.

"Too...too much. It feels too good," Byakuya moaned out, but Ichigo just slipped his hands underneath, grasping the swell of his bottom and forcing his pelvis up. He went even deeper down Ichigo's throat.

Byakuya bore a heel into Ichigo's shoulder and pushed him back on his knees. He sat up and leaned against his palm, his leg still bent and extended against Ichigo to keep him at bay.

They stared at one another, both panting, taking back the air this limerence took from them. As they sat regarding each other, heat stewing in their eyes, desire sticking to their skin, there was something wild in them. A pair of savages they were.

Blood had been suctioned to Byakuya's surface, leaving his skin crimson and vibrating. His hair was awry and his lips swollen and Ichigo thought he couldn't be more divine even if he sprouted wings right then and there.

"Fuck, I love you so much, Byakuya."

Byakuya dropped his thwarting heel and launched forward onto his knees, wrapping his arms around Ichigo and dragging him into a mess of sloppy, open mouth kisses. Their hands clutching and their mouths taking. Desperate, they were found in each others touch.

"I love you too, Ichigo," Byakuya moaned into the fissures of their covetous mouths. "Inside me. Now.

With a bit of strength and a lot of desire, Ichigo lifted Byakuya so that his legs were tightly circled around Ichigo's waist. He helped to hold him up with one hand and used the other to position the tip of his cock against Byakuya's entrance before he fell back onto his haunches, sinking half way into Byakuya as he did.

They both let out sounds of crazed pleasure, but despite the intensity, there was no hesitancy in Byakuya's motions. He grinded his way to complete glut before unwrapping his legs to press his heels into the bed, giving him enough leverage to gyrate madly atop Ichigo's cock.

Ichigo squeezed Byakuya's shapely ass, bolstering the speed of which that stretched hole slid up and down him from head to base. He used every muscle he had to match those thrust until their bodies were moving in an erratic blitz.

They were both drenched, dripping right into a beautiful friction and grunting at the exertion of it all. There was a burning heat turning Ichigo's muscles to mush and the salt of sweat stinging his eyes, and with the way they were writhing and oozing like condemned pipework, Ichigo knew he was about to burst.

Ichigo imprisoned Byakuya's hips, and at how the lawyer wiggled about and gave a scowling pout, Ichigo could've filled him with his come right there.

"Hey, I'm not going anyway," Ichigo said in between kisses of Byakuya's curdled features. "I don't want this to end too soon. You gotta slow down."

Suddenly, Ichigo was on his back with a palm steady and centered on his chest. Byakuya, darkened pupils narrowed and mouth wilted as if in preparation to feed, loomed above.

"Oh, I will go slow, Ichigo," he said, his body setting an easy and controlled rise and fall. "Now, let's see where _I_ take _you_."

Ichigo's body decompressed, surrendering its air to the space between the bed and Byakuya. He was a spectator, watching and riveted as the lawyer put on a show for him, moving like a locomotive, powerful, gradually growing towards full steam.

He let out a hummed growled, sliding his palms up Byakuya's swiveling sides, feeling that meticulous magic by the handfuls.

"You're amaz- ahh...nahh… at this."

Byakuya smirked. Hexing, it was.

"I did have some practice in the years we were apart." When Ichigo hands gripped tighter, his measured rolles of the hips became as leaden as his eyes. "Jealous, are we?"

"I don't want to think of anyone else inside of you. They don't deserve it. I don't even deserve it."

"I am not some sacred, untouched temple, Ichigo. I am human. I don't want you to idealize me."

"I don't. It's just..." Ichigo trailed off, hands gliding up Byakuya's body until they fanned over his pectorals. "I love you, so is it so weird that I see you from your best angles?"

An undefinable shift happened in Byakuya's eyes before he pulled Ichigo into an answering kiss. Ichigo rolled them over, and they began to make love with nothing but cunning instinct and years of suppressed longing.

The World would not keep this moment, because they were nothing spectacular, one story out of thousands that read the same. Two hopeless fools grinding like flint rocks, trying to rekindle a flame from a spark, begging for oxygen in the same way people dance to beseech rain. The marks they left on each other were never remembered by the world to even be forgotten, if they were observed at all. They would never be the thing of novels or oral history, passed down to tell the tale of a love that broke down walls. No, they were not important to the world, but to each other, this was their whole world. This was the pinnacle of their story, the greatest heights of which they climbed to reach, and long after the euphoria wore off and the finger prints faded, this moment would be bookmarked inside of them. The part they'd revisit over and over again.

 **xXx**

Byakuya was on his stomach, leaning up against pointy elbows as he tried to regain a rhythm to his breathing.

The curtains in Ichigo's bedroom were blackout, allowing no sun in, and the dim lamp in the corner made it almost sepia in appearance. It gave the room this ageless look, as if time didn't exist within this space.

If it wasn't for a digital bedside clock that told Byakuya the sun was already peaking above the cities horizon, he may have allowed that illusion to warp his perception.

An ineffable sensation of time on the run filled him. It wasn't quite saddened nor loneliness, but it was washed in their nuances. It was the ambiguously wistful feeling you got when staying up to the point where you have to chose between insufficient sleep or riding out the day break, and the hopeless knowledge that no matter what you decided, you've lost something. It was a feeling of needing more time, but not really knowing what for. It was the feeling of being the only one up in a town filled with sound sleepers.

The cool press of lips running down his shoulder offered Byakuya a pleasant distraction. He arched his neck to join their lips. It was the softest, most affectionate kiss he'd ever embarked in, the heat of which did not travel to his loins like unruly flames, but stayed centered around his heart like a campfire, one he could stare into for hours, huddle towards to escape the cold.

It was easy to let Ichigo distract him, with his callused fingertips, swollen ruby colored lips, and time absorbing room. It was easy, because he loved him.

It was so easy…

Only…

"I remember this," Ichigo said, brushing over a path of risen flesh with plundering fingers. "I hated that you got hurt for me that day."

Ah, Byakuya remembered. It was earned in their intrepid high school days where they wore their orange hair and wealth like targets. That wasn't the first hit Byakuya took for Ichigo, and it certainly wasn't the last.

"...I didn't think. I saw that thug pull out a knife and protecting you was all that mattered."

Ichigo pressed lips to the scar, wet and tender, and Byakuya thought he never felt anything more beautifully erotic in his life.

His lips traveled to more salacious depths, all the way down to Byakuya's perked bottom. "I'll never be the reason you get hurt again," he said, squeezing Byakuya's cheeks and spreading them in the way someone might split a peach

Byakuya panted. He should have told Ichigo to stop. They needed to stop. This was a fairy tail, one with a grim ending.

 _'You can not promise such things.'_

He sucked on Byakuya's lewdly stretched cheeks as if draining it for juices. What he got instead was moans and fluxing hips.

 _'I am not someone you should worship. You are caught up.'_

He bit into the dewy flesh before sliding his to tongue up and down the crease that lead to Byakuya's hole.

 _'We were foolish. We did not even use condoms. I allowed you to come inside of me. It was…'_

Ichigo's tongued him with calmly measured thrust, and Byakuya tried to disappear into the mattress, squirming in a disarray of bedding.

He screamed.

 _'...amazing!'_

"Fuck, I love watching you like this," Ichigo said as he moved onto his haunches. He griped Byakuya's hips and directed them back. Pliant and submissive, he compiled.

His hole was moaning, ready for anything Ichigo did, and upon penetration, it welcomed Ichigo's cock with an embrace.

 _'You are not in love with me, Ichigo, but with our past. You're in love with moments and ideas.'_

Ichigo leaned forward and ran a hand up the viscid skin of Byakuya's back, from full ass to curving spine and low shoulders. Byakuya was sure he looked similar to how a cat did when it stretched, but he didn't care. He'd look ridiculous if for Ichigo's pleasure.

"Beautiful," Ichigo muttered.

 _'I will disappoint you.'_

Ichigo fucked him widely, and Byakuya gave him access to everything. "Don't… stop…"

 _'You'll leave.'_

Ichigo gripped Byakuya's thigh with one hand and used his other to support himself beside Byakuya's head. He hovered over his lover and pushed in deeper, making Byakuya let out a primal groan. In his ear, Ichigo whispered, "Never."

 _'Don't say that. You'll leave.'_

 _'You'll leave.'_

 _'You'll…'_

Byakuya sputtered, and his hips just couldn't hold anymore. He flopped onto to mattress and Ichigo flanked him, fucking them both through their orgasam.

They both fell into a heap of intertwined breaths, and Byakuya wished that the calm would never come. Their passion, it exited in the vacuum of this time oblivious room. There was no space for it in the real world.

Ichigo's hand came to rest on his cheek. Byakuya kissed it. It tasted sweet.

"Really Ichigo? Strawberry lube?"

"What?" Ichigo shrugged. "Makes it taste better."

"I didn't know you needed to be incentivised into sucking cock."

Ichigo looked at him with laughing eyes and a big grin. "Yeah, and I didn't know you had such a dirty mouth. I like it." Ichigo nipped at Byakuya's earlobe, and dammit, if this kept up, Ichigo was going to break him. "Hungry?"

"Yes, but perhaps we do not hunger for the same thing."

"Oh yeah," Ichigo breathed right against his ear. "And what are you hungry for?"

His stomach picked that time to let out an answering growl, and Ichigo leaned back in laugher. "Yeah, I get it. I'll go make you some breakfast."

Byakuya turned onto his back and went to stand up, only to find Ichigo's hand on his chest and lips against his forehead. "Oh no you don't." Softly, he said, "Let me spoil you."

This overt affection had never been Ichigo's style. It was always more action based and less declarative. His flirting low key and taunting, his romanticism more of an unwitting bluntness that he remained oblivious too, but now, he was loading it on with an effort, and Byakuya be lying if he said he said he wasn't charmed by the excess.

Still, this wasn't real life, this was that breathless blur of seconds in between almost falling off a ledge and the hereafter. Ichigo's unyielding gratitude was a reaction, not a reality.

Byakuya wrapped his arms around Ichigo's waist and looked up to him. "I would like us to cook together," he said, "Besides, I wouldn't want you to destroy your kitchen. I'm unsure if you even know how to use a stove."

Ichigo snorted and pulled Byakuya into a melting kiss. "Right, I'd like that, but just so we're clear," he smirked, "We have a no clothes allowed rule in my kitchen, and if I recall correctly, you're not one to break rules, Byakuya."

Byakuya perked a brow as he scooped the borrowed sweat pants off the floor. He then leaned in, and right against the shell of his long lost friends ear, he said, "I only do when I'm with you Ichigo Kurosaki."

He didn't put them on, but instead draped them across his arm as he slinked out of the room, throwing Ichigo a quick over the shoulder wink.

Ichigo's reaction was delayed and flustered, but that just made it all the more gratifying. He pounced from the bed and after Byakuya, and as he went for the sweats, the lawyer griped them too, spinning around so that they were face to face. They tugged at the garment half heartedly, all touching nakedness and laughing grins.

Ichigo's arm around his waist pent them together, and eventually, Byakuya surrendered in his efforts to wrangle the sweats from behind Ichigo. His laughter waned. His face lapsed into a bank of emotions, each expression softly rounded.

Byakuya touched Ichigo's jaw. Slowly, he slid his thumb over to and across lips that didn't quite close, tracing the sensitive inner skin. He let his thumb drip off the bottom lip, paused at the chin, and watched the way it bounced back, watched the way he was watch with eyes that billowed.

Ichigo looked as if he had cultivated whole world's with his tongue, and he just wish to share it with him, but Byakuya liked the silence. He liked the quiet occasions when they spoke only with their eyes.

He could've tried to explain, but he didn't, because he knew there wasn't any phrase within the limitations of their language that could sum up the longing, the pain, the history, and what it all meant to them.

Honestly, Byakuya didn't think he'd want to hear words like that even if they did exist.

"Do you wish to see me naked that badly?"

"I just want to watch you freeze your ass off." Ichigo brought his smirking lips to Byakuya's. The lawyer rolled his eyes but accepted it fully. Against Byakuya's mouth, Ichigo whispered, "Seeing you naked is just a bonus."

"You're incorrigible."

Ichigo nibbled on Byakuya's jaw. "Yeah, and I think you like that."

Byakuya slyly ran his hand up Ichigo's bottom and settled against his wrist. In one slick maneuver he snatched the sweat pants from Ichigo and spun from his hold.

Taking a few backwards steps towards the kitchen, Byakuya's lips quirked at the scowling and casually nude Ichigo. "I see you're still so slow, Ichigo," he said before turning and sauntering forward, sure his friend was following.

They cooked together, trading banter and dressed in nothing but the stove light. They kissed and flirted. They ate their food on the couch and talked softly over the rims of mugs. Byakuya read for them and then they showered together, talking nothing of the past as if they were living in it.

This is what they could've been like years ago if only they had been a bit bolder, a bit thicker in the gut, but they weren't, and this was just a fantasy. It was self indulgence without moderation. It was relapse. Byakuya wasn't selfish enough to expect more from one single moment.

After that, Byakuya followed Ichigo to bed and laid his head against his chest. He listened to Ichigo's heart beat and drew circles on his stomach. He did all the things lovers do.

His fingers lazily brushed up Byakuya's back, and when he talked, there was sleep in his voice. "I've thought about this a lot."

Byakuya could hear the slurry undertones of his words, and he wondered what honesty might leak from Ichigo in his sleep riddled state. It worried him enough to shift against Ichigo, but not enough to stop his curiosity.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, and other stuff too, like… getting married, having kids."

"Kids?"

"Yep, at least two. You'll like… bore them with poetry and make costumes for their school plays and stuff, and I'll," he chuckled sleepily, "probably be that dad who thinks he's cool but he's really not.

Byakuya chuckled too, but it was wet and forced because of the salt that burned at his eyes. Ichigo was, fortunately, too far gone to realize. "You make us sound so domestically boring," he said, half taunting.

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with boring. That's a privilege...growing old and boring with someone. Not everyone...gets to." He shifted a bit and brought Byakuya closer. Mumbled, just barely discernable, Byakuya heard him say, "I think it be nice, growing old with you."

Hot tears fell onto Ichigo's chest, and Byakuya put a palm to his mouth to muffle a moan. He shouldn't have let this happen when he knew it would lead to a dead end, but he was selfish and he was vile, and for that reason, he would lay in Ichigo's warmth for just a bit longer.

 **xXx**

Rukia didn't quite know what to do with the scene before her. Ichigo sat on a bed of shambled sheets, looking as if he was the sole occupant on an island made up of discarded beer bottles and cigarette buts. He looked helplessly stranded with the back of his head slumped against the wall and his eyes their own two little deserted island, isolated and uncharted in their sockets.

Ichigo had never been what you would consider a tell all person, but he often kept his heart locked away in his eyes, making him see through to anyone who looked close enough.

Rukia stepped closer.

If he was ignoring her or if he didn't register her wasn't clear, but this certainly wasn't Ichigo's typical understated melancholy that would emanate from him as if it was just part of his overall aesthetic. This made Rukia fell the need to adjust herself, act accordingly.

"Sooo, I guess we're not going to dinner."

His eyes widened marginally as he looked up to her. They were wilted in the way only years could cause, unfurling in slow motion, time making it hard to move against the light.

He looked at his surroundings, uselessly scavenging the contents of his little island for an excuse.

When he looked back up to her, lips opening and closing, Rukia shook her head and said, "Relax, I'm not judging you." She walked around his bed, using her arm like a machete to cut through the heavy smoke. "Much."

Rukia coughed theatrically. "Geze, open a window," she said as she pulled back a curtain and did just that. "Light a candle, spray some Febreze, something." She inhaled deeply and turned back towards Ichigo with a smirk. "Cigarette smoke, alcohol, and sex. Sounds like you went out with Grimmjow and Renji last night. I'd probably be upset too."

When that got nothing, not even a half assed snort, Rukia started to worry. It wasn't like Ichigo to wallow in a pit of cigarette ash, dead skin, and dried tears. It also wasn't like him to be sitting like he was, one leg hung over the side of the bed, the other bent in front of him, his head dipped and the world only as big as the space between his eyes and his hands.

She came to sit beside him and placed a hand on his knee.

"Ichigo, what's wrong with you. I haven't seen you like this since your mom died."

He looked up. His eyes trembled. His mouth was ajar. He swallowed hard and pushed fingers through his hair, but still, he said nothing.

"Ichigo, you're kind've scaring me. Say something."

"He left," Ichigo said, words wispy in their control. He dipped his head again as if the promise of collapse was in their eye contact. "He's gone."

His knuckled hands kneaded against his thighs before he grabbed another cigarette and lit it. Quickly, he twisted to open his bedside draw and pulled out a picture. He threw it on the bed in front her, refusing to look at it.

Rukia picked up the partially charred picture. It was slightly aged, showing Byakuya and Ichigo posing at a skating rink. When Ichigo muttered out, "There's a message on the back," she flipped it over.

In her brothers familiar handwriting, she read the words, 'Do not contact me.' It was curt, and pointed, and she could practically hear them as they would be spoken by Byakuya.

"Ichigo..Byakuya, I'm sure he-"

"I don't need you to defend him," Ichigo said, stubbing out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. "I get Byakuya's subtext… It's just, we had such a great night, I thought…"

The words hung as low as Ichigo's head, and Rukia tried to find some wisdom in what seemed to be a helpless situation.

"Sometimes a good night is just a good night."

"This isn't some onenightstand, Rukia, this is me and Bya-"

"I know, I know, Ichigo and Byakuya, the great unsung love story of our time."

Ichigo's face pinched. "Don't patronize me."

Rukia's squeezed at the bridge of her nose with a sigh, "I'm not," she said, standing up to amble around the room. "It's just, I'm tired of seeing you guys like this. All you do is hurt each other lately. Maybe you guys should be-"

"Don't finish that sentence, Rukia."

The woman turned back towards Ichigo and looked at those two glossy islands, nearly submerged by the ocean of which they floated in.

"This isn't how our story ends. I'll get his number, if not from you than from Kaien. I'll make him un-"

"Okay, Ichigo. Let's say you do get his number, then what?" Ichigo's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, shifting in search for something. "You laid all your cards out on the table, right? You told him how you felt, how sorry you are?"

"...Well, yeah…"

"Then what could you say? It doesn't matter how much you love each other. If he isn't ready, there's nothing you can say to change his mind. You need to respect that, Ichigo."

Ichigo looked as if he wanted to contest it, but there were white flags being raised under his weighty eyelids, and as much as it hurt to see, Rukia knew it was a necessary surrender.

"So that's it? It's really over between us?"

"Yeah, Ichigo. I think it is."

 **xXx**

Haikha: Thank yew! :) Yeah, they still have a while to go, but they'll get there... eventually.

Tifanny91: Great to hear from you as always. I hope you actually get the notification for this. Yeah, them sleeping together, as you can see, didn't help. But it seemed like the natural progression of what would happen in their situation since theres all this intense emotion mixed with surpressed longing broiling between them.

Emilytaylor5999: Thank you! hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Guest: Thank you! :)

fire vixon: Your wish is my command. :)


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